Luft and Boden:It Will Go Wrong
by LuftZielony
Summary: "A tragedy is the beginning to every miracle!" Is what Celene "Celery" Seeds, member of team TRGC, was told by Professor Rigor when she passed the entrance exam into Bleary academy. An unknown school due to its relative newness and location on a large island that holds many secrets to uncover, but how can she be bothered with trying to find them if her team is banned from eating?
1. 1:0 Assay: Cuddled Recombustions

Gregale is hell on Remnant. I had barely eaten most of the week, I had been ridiculed by peers and staff, and on the brink of a breaking point.

Two months ago, I thought I'd be able to make a legacy for myself at this place. A way for me to get my name out as one of the first of many achievers to be a part of Bleary Academy's early legacy. Now, I'll admit, I screwed up a bit in that time. However, that doesn't mean I deserve this from the staff nor from the other students.

I get a kitchen blown up on accident once, and now I can't eat?

Sure, I can see why they'd be upset. Celene Seeds decided to sneak into the kitchen, had dust on her hands from some earlier field work, and then it ignited from the heat and blew up some appliances. Some of the staff got injured in the incident. Is telling the rest of the cooking staff to refuse TRGC food for a few week necessary?

Whatever, people make rash decisions when they're heated. Just like I decided I wasn't full enough and needed more food. My stock of snacks in my room had run dry relatively quick, and my other teammates, Gwen and Trilby, only spared me a little of theirs.

I still had a slab of meat that only needed a little fire to get cooked. Didn't know how to make a fire, but I could improvise...with dust. Shake a bit for a small fire, then I'd be able to throw a few sticks on it to make it grow.

So that's what I did, set up some rocks and sticks into a makeshift spit and called it a day. I took out the vial of red dust and popped open the top. My hands shook as I tilted the glass container into the pit of sticks.

_Just a sprinkle of it is all I needed_.

And as soon as the red powder hit the bundle of twigs the embers came. Then it flared into a tiny fire that later grew in size over time. Enough for the flames to come up to about a third of the pit I'd created.

I could felt a faint warmth from the fire, would this even be enough to cook? The makeshift spit couldn't even rotate the meat. Dammit, why did I even bother?

I should've just given Gwen a bigger cut of the allowance my mom sent me in return for more of her snacks. This punishment only wasn't going to last any longer anyway. At least it was better than having to run around a forest looking for items with just a list plus vague directions on where each were.

Whoever designed the entrance exam for this place needed to get swallowed by a nevermore.

I rose from the ground, placing the dust near the pit, and brushed off my olive green cargo pants. Then I straightened my teal fleece jacket. The sound of footsteps behind me created a crunching noise against the grass with each step. I turned around, it was Gwen.

I never saw her wear a gray flat cap before, she wore it sorta slanted and it covered the front of her bob cut. Her beige bomber jacket was zipped up despite the hot weather, though the legs of her jeans stopped at her ankles. I swear, weather only affected her when she allowed it to.

When I first met her I thought she was a Schnee at first glance because of the white of her hair. Then I tried to be genial with her during the introduction ceremony. Thanks to her response, I learned just a little about the _entirety_ of her family's genealogy and history along with specific reasons as to why she looks nothing like, "A bunch of stuck up corporate assholes."

My response to that last one was likely one of the main contributions to the state of our, "friendship."

Her voice had a light rasp when she spoke, "Celery, what is this?"

I took a quick look behind me, "It's fine."

"That's a jar of dust behind your leg."

Sweat formed on my forehead a little, "Indeed it is!" I said while taking a step back. A finger poked me in my side causing me to flinch.

"Boo." said the toneless voice.

It was Trilby, my team leader, hunched over beside me with the front of her brown utility vest dangling a tad off her body due to its size. It exposed the front of her long sleeved tan shirt beneath. Her messy curly brown hair tickled my arm as she raised her body. How did she sneak up on me? Her semblance was sound creation, not the complete control of it.

"Why are you guys even out here?" I asked.

Trilby leaned on one leg to pick up the vial of dust behind me. The dust vial made a swishing sound as she shook it in my face with slow exaggerated movements. I froze for a moment before swiping it from her.

"You could've blown us up!" I said.

Trilby shrugged, "Which is why it'd be safer near a small fire."

I sighed, "It's fine."

Gwen swiped the bottle from behind, "Until you try to _start_ fires with it," she said. Then she brought the bottle closer to her face and examined it.

"Absolutely amazing Celery, first you blow up the kitchen because you couldn't control your gluttony, and now you're about to blow up the forest-"

"Blow up and set on fire." said Trilby.

Gwen smacked her palm across her face, "I was getting to that, Fedora."

Trilby smirked, "Get to it faster then, Miss Schnee."

Gwen gave her a sardonic smile. Trilby walked over to the spit and looked at the meat. She tapped one of the crude supports with the tip of her shoe and the entire creation collapsed into the fire.

"Smells good," she said.

I opened my mouth to rebut her, when an object in the sky came into view at another portion of the island. Gwen tried to get my attention before she turning her head in the direction I was looking. It came closer into view, its hull was moderate in length and it appeared to have a gray and black color scheme. The triangular wings left a trail of smoke through the sky as the airship made for a descent.

A loud bang sounded as I lost sight of it when it went behind a mass of trees. The ground shook and we lost our footing, I hit the ground head first. Gwen shouted as the sound of glass shattered. Not even a second later, an explosion erupted from the general radius of the fire pit.

My body flipped a few feet into the air before I landed, again, head first onto the ground once more. Trilby and Gwen landed nearby, and tiny fires were all around us. My vision started to become hazy, and then everything faded to black.

* * *

><p>I awoke in a bed and fought to keep my heavy eyelids open. My teammates sat at tables in front of the room. I groaned and Trilby looked over at me.<p>

"I'm fine," I said mumbling.

Trilby got up and walked over to me. She put her hand to my head and then knocked her knuckles against it.

"Really?" I asked.

"We know you're ok, we've been in here all day talking with Pewter and Rigor about this." said Trilby.

"We're popular now Celery, TRGC is the latest in Bleary Academic gossip!" Gwen shifted direction in her chair to face me, "Two explosions in one week. Get used to hearing about this shit."

"Miss Blanch, please mind your language in the school for the third time," said a voice on the other side of the room, likely a nurse. I'd never been inside the infirmary before. It was quite small, more so than I expected, you'd think a school in such a dangerous location would put more emphasis on its medical facility. I could hear wheels roll across the floor tiles and the nurse came into my view.

Gwen groaned and gave her a thumbs up. She slumped down in her chair with her head resting in her hand. The nurse rolled backwards some more and got up to walk towards me with a clipboard in hand.

"Celene, you hit your head hard from that explosion , but," she dragged out the word. "The fall could only induce minor trauma, and your aura shielded you from even that."

"So I can go?" I asked.

"Back to _class_, yes."

I looked between the nurse and Trilby, twice, with confusion on my face. "Go back to class…" I took a breath, "Seriously?"

"Seriously. What you got was the equivalent to falling off a bike and scrapping your knee Celene."

I frowned.

"No pouting, Rigor even wants to give us an extra assignment thanks to your amazing culinary crash course," said Gwen.

Trilby grabbed me around the stomach, heaved me into the air, and put me firm on the floor. "He already told us the details, get your weapon and we'll meet outside." she said.

My stomach growled and I jumped back onto the bed. "I'm still _dying_ feed me!" I said. Then I started patting my belly as if it were a drum. Gwen reached into her pocket and threw something that struck me in the arm. I looked at it as it landed on the bed, it was a granola bar.

I stared at it for a few minutes.

"Don't eat it all at once," said Trilby. Gwen just sneered, now sitting in her chair backwards. I sighed, unwrapped the bar, and began to eat it.

This place and everyone in it could go to hell.

* * *

><p>The forest's air was cool as nightfall started to overtake the evening. We walked around in circles, and had gotten lost a few times. The CCT map system here was awful, and it didn't help that Trilby couldn't remember basic cardinal directions.<p>

"Guys, west?" said Trilby. She stuck her hand out north.

I grabbed the scroll from her hands and flipped it right side up.

"Thanks."

Gwen traced the trees with her dagger as she walked. "Why are they sending _us_ to go check out this airship?" She tried to cut at a thin branch in one swing, it recoiled and smacked her in the head.

I laughed. Gwen yanked the branch off and threw it at my legs. It tripped me, and I staggered forward into a tree near her.

"Completely uncalled for," I said.

Gwen took off her flat cap and dusted it off. Then she gave me a light slap in the forehead with it before putting it back on.

"So was getting us in trouble so we had to do this," said Trilby.

"Get over it," I said simpering.

Trilby slid down a small slope. I mimicked her action, Gwen jumped from the top instead.

"That's why you're going to starve to death," said Gwen.

"Is that why you all aren't super upset with me?"

"Pretty much," said Trilby. She looked at her scroll, "It should be here I think?"

I went to her and looked at the map display. Where we needed to go should've been G6 according to the map's grid system. Yet where we were was not even close to what the map was showing. There was supposed to be an open beach like area here, not more greenery.

"Are you sure you're looking at that thing right?" I asked.

Trilby handed the scroll to Gwen. "Do you want me to answer that?" she said.

Gwen looked back and forth between our surroundings and the map. "Yep, this should be it." she said, "Thanks Rigor. " The bushes rustled. My stomach growled louder than normal.

Then an ursa emerged from a thicket with a leap. Its red eyes shot daggers of malice and bone spikes emanated from its back. We all took out our weapons as it walked towards with deliberation, each step intended to intimidate us.

I swung my axe, Gyrate Periculum, behind me and pulled the trigger on the underside of its haft. The head of the axe exploded, and I was propelled forward.

The ursa was sluggish in its movements. It tried to slash at me with its claws the moment I got close but at the last minute I swung Gyrate to my right and sent myself to the left. My body came to a gradual halt as I broke throughbranches and bushes.

The grimm was about to run after me when Gwen shot an arrow that hit its front leg. It jerked backwards, Trilby ran towards it. She thrust her sword, Argent Íchos, into its side. The edges of the broadsword's blade expanded, revealing a crimson core at the center of the fuller. A dissonant tune started to play from Argent, the color of its core changing with every note.

The song reminded me of an inharmonious rapid fast rendition of a nursery rhyme I used to hear a lot when I was younger.

The ursa jerked and thrashed about. It managed to shake some of Trilby's grip on the sword, she only had one hand left to keep hold. Gwen began to ready an arrow but hesitated to fire.

"Trilby let go so I won't hit you!" Gwen shouted.

The ursa managed to fling Trilby into a thicket that was behind me. Gwen fired arrows in rapid succession at the grimm, some deflected off the bone spikes on its back while others hit the midsection. Since the ursa was focused on her, I put Gyrate to my side and fired off explosions in short bursts.

I was spinning in a mobile circle that cleared parts of trees and other vegetation near me that I hadn't already destroyed from my previous entry. The ursa noticed and tried avoid me. I jumped and fired off another round that launched me straight for the grimm. I landed on the ground next to it and did a rising slash combined with another explosion, one of its forelegs sailed off in an arc over my head. I stopped and stumbled around, the dizziness from the spinning caught up to me.

It let out a low groan and then something whirled through the air and struck it. Once my mind and vision regained stability I saw an arrow protruding from the side of its face. The grimm's corpse then evaporated away. The arrows and Argent dropping from it afterwards. Gwen collected them and came my way.

"C'mon Celery, the Fedora got thrown through here," she said. Gwen walked over to the thicket and grunted as she jumped into it. I sheathed Gyrate and followed her, trying to do the same. Except I tripped on an exposed tree root and tumbled into it before falling and hitting sand on the other side.

I got off the ground and brushed the sand of my clothes. Trilby was a few feet away eyeing her shoulder. Gwen was nowhere in sight.

"Trilby!" I called out walking towards her, "What happened to Gwen?"

"She helped me up, threw Argent on the ground, saw something, and then ran off-"

The sound of a horn blared off near us.

"-Well, guess we found her," said Trilby.

Trilby and I walked along the beach, if you could call it a beach, it didn't look amazing like the ones I'd seen back in Vale. The sand was a grayish murky color and the only things that shored were tree branches. The sea water was barely noticeable, the waves didn't have any major movements at all.

The airship came into view after a few minutes of walking. The horn going off once every so often.

We walked up the ramp of the airship, and Trilby banged on the door.

"Please stop honking, we're here," she said. The doors opened and Gwen walked out.

"Eh, not much in there, and not much around here," said Gwen.

Trilby put a hand on her hip. "Really, not a single person?" she asked.

Gwen scratched her head and gave a look of epiphany, as if a light bulb turned on. She ran back inside and dragged out an unconscious man. He was short and had a graying mustache. His navy ribbed sweater was torn along with his black pants, he didn't have any shoes.

Trilby put a hand over her mouth. "'Not much in there' huh?" she said, mocking Gwen.

Gwen clapped her hands together. Her face became stern. "You're missing the big picture mam," she said attempting to make her voice deep. "This airship, we can rebuild it, leave this shithole and find a new path for ourselves as rogue huntsman!"

Trilby rolled her eyes.

I rose my hand. "Miss Blanch, we don't know how to pilot an airship," I said.

She ignored me. "Go to Vacuo or Vale y'know?" she said.

I folded my arms. "Eh, I don't wanna go back to Vale," I said.

Gwen walked up to me and flicked me in the forehead. "Stay here or don't, I don't have to be bothered with you either way." Gwen smirked, "But I'd feel safer knowing we're on separate land masses. So consider a friend's feelings, kay?"

Trilby pinched the bridge of her nose. "Can we _please_ get this guy and go back to Bleary?" she said, the anger she intended came out as singsong instead.

A roar emerged from beyond the thicket that surrounded the beach. Our heads darted in its direction.

"Real neat. Thanks Gwen," said Trilby.

Two ursa emerged from the woods. They were bigger than the one we had killed before. Their bodies were covered in bone plating. Not ursa, but ursa majors.

A part of me wanted to believe they'd just came to admire the elegance of Gwen's horn honking.

* * *

><p><strong>Just a Note: The long overdue rewrite of the first chapter. Some things were changed so that it ties into the story's current state instead of reading like a one off thing in an entirely different tone that felt separate from the actual story. <strong>


	2. 1:1 Assay: Cognitive Cinch

There was a popular superstition that I heard saying, "The more spikes a Grimm has, the stronger it was," and I can say proof or no I will always hold that belief firm it. The longer I gazed at them the more my legs turned to putty.

The way the bones protruded from the black fur on their bodies, the ever alertness that beamed from the red of their eyes as they sauntered around us caused my heart to go full tilt. The one on the left came closer to me, and I gave a slight flinch in response. The way it acted as if it were sizing me up. It'd be in my best interest to contain my fear.

The amount of worked I put into becoming a huntress could be taken from me if the slightest error occurred, and I wasn't one for good decision making under pressure. Not to mention our team being handicapped in the synergy department somewhat due to our relative newness. We shared a supply of dust, and most of that had gone up in flames. Well in Trilby's case she didn't need to use it. The way her weapon, Argent Íchos, functioned made it so the broadsword took more from her semblance's ability to generate sound rather than needing dust.

As long as the sword penetrated something.

The Ursa snapped at me and brought me back into reality. It was only thirteen seconds of intimidation from these monsters. Though in my head, this had been going on for several minutes.

My hands trembled as I reached for Gyrate Periculum on my back. The Ursa near me stopped, and uttered a low guttural growl. I felt my lips contort into an awkward smile. I froze.

We needed a coordinated and effective strike, or some type of tactic to get away. Attempting a run right here was suicide. They'd make sure to attack us the moment any of us made a move that wasn't a shriek from their presence.

Before I could utter the suggestion to Trilby, I heard the creak of a bow being drawn. The Ursa must've let its attention falter on Trilby too long for Gwen to pull her usual escapes. She had managed to sneak inside a patch of bushes where she readied an arrow. Her hands trembled as she drew the arrow to its fullest. Semblance at work?

Gwen talked about it, but I never saw her use it firsthand. The head of the arrow began to glow dark blue. Her hands became frantic in movement. Frost began to form on the arrow's head. I couldn't imagine trying to maintain such a form, especially given the pressure of the situation.

The moment she fired, she collapsed onto the tree's trunk using her right hand as leverage; the arrow was so quiet and fast I could barely process what happened.

The neck of the Ursa near me lurched to the left in an unnatural angle, it spun in sloppy circles before falling over on its side. As the beast thrashed, the arrow erupted into a medium sized irregular shape of ice. Then it just lay there motionless. Shards of its bone plating scattered across the beach.

It had all transpired in such an apace manner. I unsheathed Gyrate without hesitation.

The other Ursa let out a growl and rushed for Trilby. Gwen cut her recovery short to fire arrows at it. Each arrow was either drastically off mark, or bounced off the Ursa's outward patches of bone. It then turned its attention to her, once again started a charge. Gwen managed to jump away from the first dodge, but her weariness became more and more apparent. She couldn't match the Ursa's recuperation speed, and was struck in the side, and to the side by its robust clawed paw.

Her unconscious body rolled in the sand a few feet away from me. I didn't need to check my scroll to know her aura was as good as gone.

Then it went for Trilby again.

"Trilby, j-just keep it distracted I've got something!" I shouted

I saw her nod as she dodged and parried the Ursa's onslaught of attacks. A combination of standing on its hind legs for a brief moment and striking at her with its claws, to charging at her without relent. Even when it tried to slam into her and missed, Trilby could only anticipate another attack as it recovered. If she could thrust Argent into it then my plan could make its break into reality, but with the ferocity it was attacking with, anyone could see that wasn't happening.

Gripping Gyrate, I sprinted across the sand. My heart raced with every step. The Ursa had superior bone armoring to his deceased partner. Its hind legs and underbelly were the only spots that were exposed enough to do decent damage when hit.

It moved too much to get a clean hit off it, and I didn't trust myself to reliably hit the stomach with how savage its movements were.

No, no need to try and go for damage. Just hit it with a blow that could shake it into a daze for Trilby and I to regroup. The gleam of Argent as it glowed with red in its crevice in the center of the blade somehow energized me. I had to do this, I _needed_ to do this. Being a bystander was something I refused to be when I became a huntress, and I won't fall back into old habits in such a crucial moment.

As I got close to the Ursa, I made for one final lunge with Gyrate held overhead. The back of the axe exploded. My body flipped vertically as it propelled forward, Gyrate became lighter. The only way I could pull off moves such as this, my semblance: mass manipulation. As I flipped through the air I accounted for the exact moment I needed to revert my weapon's mass for the attack.

At the apex of the closing flip between the two of us I braced myself for the impact to come.

As if were as if a clap of thunder had just sounded off. My arms and back ached, but I could manage. If I had tried to pull that off without aura…Well I'd been dead a long time ago.

The Ursa Major let out a low whimper as it sulked onto the ground puffing and wheezing. If it were the normal variant I'm sure that attack could've cleaved it in two.

I could settle for destroying the long strand of bone plating on its back. Similar to the other Major Gwen had killed, the fragments scattered themselves across the sand at the climax of the collision.

Trilby shouted with Argent in hand, she plunged the broadsword into the Ursa's back and took a tuft of its black fur into a free hand. The Grimm wailed and floundered around as the dissonant notes rang throughout its body.

My arms and back ached as I flopped away from Trilby's wild rodeo. The Ursa stopped struggling a several seconds later. Trilby removed the broadsword from the back of the fallen creature. As she walked by me she ruffled my black hair and laughed. She picked up Gwen off the ground and lugged the unconscious girl onto her back.

"Alright, let's get out of here. I can see more Grimm coming to this spot after hearing all the commotion we made."

I got out of the sand, and brushed the dry particles of dirt off of my jacket and pants. I looked at the airship, and felt as if there was more to look for here. I shuddered.

"Trilby!" I stomped my feet onto the sand, "That guy w-were did he go?" I stammered.

"I forgot he was even here through all that chaos," Trilby began to walk into the forest, "Screw it, let's just report what we found. We can come back here after we rest up."

I mumbled "Right," and jogged to catch up to her.

It felt as if we were fighting those things for two years or something.

* * *

><p>I yawned and stretched my legs for a brief moment and hopped out of bed. The rising sun suffused into the room forcing me to squint my eyes. I tried to close the light blue curtains, but the sunlight still came through. As I went to close the blinds in conjunction with the curtains, I noticed something that should've been fairly obvious.<p>

It was still dark out, the light of an airship? Whatever, it's early in the morning. I can never care early in the morning.

Bleary Academy is pretty small due to its newness, the idea, and the location of it. Being educated as a huntsmen on an island. It wasn't my first choice, third, or even fifth. My mother insisted that I came to this new academy. Go out and make a name for myself at a place where there wasn't much established to take root in its history!

Or I could get kicked out without question, and "Do what disobedient children do."

Someone rapped on my door. I walked over and got on my tiptoes to see through the peephole. Gwen's face obscured my view until she stepped the side. The two were still in their pajamas. Trilby was slumped onto the railing near the stairs halfway asleep.

"Why are you two even hear we're not giving the full report until-"

Gwen's voice was shrill, "Just open the damn door!"

I mumbled under my breath let my hand rest on the doorknob several seconds before opening it. Gwen stared at me for a few seconds before flashing a forced smile.

"Howdy do neighbor," she said in a mocking gravely voice.

"You're not cute," I replied.

I stepped outside into the hallway and closed the door behind me. I looked past Gwen and noticed Trilby was fully asleep now, and half her body was hanging over the stair's railing. I looked back at Gwen.

"So uh," I shuffled my feet side to side a little, "What's this about?"

"All that dust you blew up? Good news, we're getting shipments a day early!" She took out a scroll and showed a message from administration, "But I can't trust you to handle dust for anything other than rocketing through the air. So that's why you can camp out near the cafeteria and make sure no shit takes our table."

"I agree and all because I don't feel like going outside at 5 A.M.," I peered beside her to look at Trilby, "But I don't think the leader who loves to send me to do the mundane work wants to either."

Gwen turned her head towards Trilby.

"OK. We'll get some official confirmation," she walked over to Trilby and gripped her exposed sides, "Hey, not good enough to be considered a fedora, wake up-"

Trilby's eyes opened with shock, and she looked down and began to babble about how she managed to start floating in the air. Her feet bucked like a bronco as she panicked, and it connected right into Gwen's face. Gwen staggered backwards on the stair. Her foot slipped, and she fell onto ground. While that had transpired, Trilby was flailing about as if she were swimming. She slowly teetered over the edge of the railing, and let out a wail as she fell down two flights of stairs.

I waltzed over "accidentally," stepping on Gwen and looked over the edge of the railing.

Trilby lay face down onto the ground floor's carpet, a scarlet aura emitted around her body.

Gwen groaned.

Other students began to peak their heads out of their doors. Some asked what was going on, and others wondered if it could be a Grimm attack. In the span of a few minutes a crowd mostly composed of people still in sleepwear gathered around.

"Excuse me. Thanks," a brown haired boy stood in front of the crowd. I think he was a part of team MGIC, "Oh nothing to worry about everyone. TRGC's just trying to commit murder against one another as usual." His face seemed to be filled with disappointment, "Just do this stuff when you're out on missions and away from everyone else. I'm generally scared you all might burn this place down or something."

Some in the crowd laughed.

"Burn down Bleary? I give my full support towards your efforts," said a guy from team TRGT.

"Why are you all joking around? I heard someone yell, and a loud bang followed!" the girl raced over to the stairs and looked around. I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to Trilby's still laid out body.

Her voice quavered "Shit is she ok?"

"You ok?" I asked, shouting down below.

"Ihm fhine," Trilby said into the carpet.

"She's fine," I told the girl. For whatever reason she looked as if I said her sister died or something and bolted down the stairs anyway.

I looked back toward the crowd and saw professor Tulip making his way through the crowd.

"Celene, Professor Rigor is returning in several hours along with that shipment of dust!" He sounded breathy, "Everyone go back to your rooms or go do something productive before classes start," he pinched the bridge of his nose as the crowd dispersed, though some students still lingered about in the hall, occasionally looking over to where we were.

Tulip looked back at me, "Like I was saying," he gave his tie a tug and lifted his head a bit. It caused a giant shine to shortly reflect of the edge of his glasses, "There is no need for this nonsense! I know there's only three of you now, but you must carry yourselves like huntsmen. The image of this school starts with you all. Now go to bed or do something to better yourselves!" He folded his arms like a child.

"Uh, sure Tulip," I responded

"A much motivating speech indeed," someone behind me said with modulation.

I turned around, and Professor Rigor was there. A burly middle aged man who sported a cloth jacket, with black slacks, and dress shoes.

"You're back already Professor?" asked Tulip.

"The sky ship just flew in several minutes ago with the latest dust shipment. We were able to come back earlier than expected due to an overproduction," He stepped forward. His foot hit Gwen and he walked backwards, "Why…Is she on the floor?"

"It's fine," I answered.

Gwen groaned once more.

Rigor's face became confused as if he wanted to say "What?" Before he shook his head and spoke, "Anyway, I sent out a message over the schools servers. I don't imagine most of you seeing it since you'd all be asleep, or causing trouble around this time."

"Ah yes I understand Professor," said Tulip nodding his head, "Team TRGC had an accident as you can see here," he pointed to Gwen, "Their leader was carried off to the infirmary by, err, Ra I think her name was."

Rigor's eyebrows perked up, "This is TRGC huh, the one sent to investigate that airship that bypassed the glyphs?" He looked at me.

"Yeah, we were going to give our report on what happened when you returned. In the morning," I leaned on the railing, "Do you want to hear it now, Rigor?"

"I'd prefer to have a full account from all three of you, it'd be better to have as many details as possible. And don't forget to show your respect," he flapped his coat, "It's Professor Rigor!"

_He flapped his coat._

Bless the morning and its power to make me the most uncaring being ever. If this had occurred during the day, I'd be struggling to hold back laughter.

I nodded, he began to make his way down the stairs, "I'm eager to hear that report Ms. Seeds," he said venturing downward. Tulip left as well.

I went over to Gwen and tapped her forehead with my fingertips, "Wake up and go to bed, we have a meeting with Rigor in the morning, remember?" She got up and dragged her feet to her and Trilby's room. I looked at their iron door plate with their names engraved on it.

Gwen Blanch & Trilby Sharp.

I was about to do the same when the door plate on mine caught my attention.

Celene Seeds & Raz Keira.

So much can happen in just three months.

* * *

><p>All three of us were dressed in the Bleary uniform. Well, it wasn't anything special. The style of uniform was typical of any Huntsman school found in any of the kingdoms. Our shirts were blue and lined with black, and the skirts were a plaid gray with black. There wasn't much to do on this island aside from running around forests and talking. Rigor promised that in time things would start up, and that we'd have to bear with it for now.<p>

So if someone wasn't doing anything that involved fighting, or sleeping, they were in their uniform. Excluding those who just couldn't stand wearing it when classes were over of course.

"Very impressive that you all managed to dispatch them with your level of experience!" said Rigor, a smile spread across his face, "You three have a reputation for causing mishaps, but good huntsmen of Bleary get the job done no matter who they are," he adjusted himself in his chair and did the shirt flap again.

Gwen and I giggled.

"I'm going to just say it, we didn't finish the mission," Trilby looked over her shoulder at us, "The man Gwen found on that airship vanished, and we didn't want to linger around in case more Grimm came due to our weak state." Rigor was still typing on his scroll after Trilby finished.

Gwen piped in, "We can check to see if he ran back into the airship during the fight if you want Professor."

"Not necessary at all," he scratched his face, "If there's such powerful Grimm lurking in that area then I don't want to risk a team of novices in such a way. I'll assemble some members of the staff and top students to go investigate this." He seemed to be finished typing as he closed the scroll.

"Like I said before, you all did well for a team of your stature. I'll have you all work with team TRGT on their mission to thin out Beowolves and Boarbatusks in the vicinity near the waterfall not too far from here."

My body slumped a bit hearing about the reassignment. I hope they at least tell us what's going on after they figured it out, but I doubted that.

Rigor looked at me and gave a hefty chuckle, "Don't be upset Celene, as time passes you and your teammates will wish you had assignments that you could practically do in your sleep," he stood up from his chair, "You all should hurry on to the cafeteria, lunch is beginning soon!"

We stepped out of his office and broke into this awkward rhythm between a power walk and a run.

Gwen yanked my hair, causing me to yelp. Then she immediately straightened it back as best as she could.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"I was going to get on you for not camping out at the cafeteria to reserve our spots, but I'll be fair this time and admit you couldn't." A smug grin appeared on her face.

I'd say I hated how she acted, however that would make me a hypocrite since we were so much alike. I remember our first month as a team and how she'd try to impress Raz and I during training by firing three arrows all it once at a target. Gwen and I got along well until that. I got so bored sitting around I would throw paper balls at her as she aimed, and played coy when it hit her. Needless to say she got upset at the disruptions and fired all three above my head, and it has been back and forth banter ever since.

Trilby opened the door to the cafeteria, and we went inside.

Gwen stuck out her arm in front of me, "Alright this place is damn near full. Me and Trilby are gonna have to occupy TRGT's few seats while you get the food-"she cut off her statement as if she went through a flashback, "_I _will get the food, you can plop your butt down in a chair and wait for me, got it?"

I made a circle with my index finger and thumb, "It'll be all peachy and copacetic," I said prior to ambling off through the crowded cafeteria. This was a small school, however someone had the bright idea to pile half of its 500 aspiring huntsmen into the already tiny cafeteria at once. Which lead to this mess right here.

Anyway, I needed to sit at that table as my mistress demands.

I looked through the cafeteria four or five times for Ra, the only member of TRGT whose face I remember. Eventually, Trilby just manually adjusted my head in view of where she was, and had to walk over to here because I still couldn't see her. I'm pretty sure she mumbled a dumbass under her breath too. Well, in my defense it seems Ra decided she wanted an asymmetric cut this morning, and now she looked completely different.

Trilby and I sat down at the table, and Ra was the only one who didn't look like they were about to have a heart attack.

"We've been assigned to work with you all today," said Trilby.

Short to the point as always.

The guy with short and curly hair next to Ra cussed though I couldn't hear the exact word he used over how loud the place was. The other two did a similar hand over mouth gesture where they stared at the table in disbelief.


	3. 1:2 Assay: Conspirator Conundrum

This island, Gregale, is nothing more than a huge boring slab of land located southeast of Vale and Vacuo. If someone heard about Bleary and Gregale they'd assume this place had been explored with a fine tooth comb prior to the actual school being built. Most students took "explored" as "skimmed," and came to disappoint themselves less when the information from a map displaying on their scroll didn't match up to what they saw in reality. Rigor, or any of the higher members on staff, wouldn't admit this school had a rather rushed construction; the lower notes of the staff either had no idea, or hand-waved any question that required an answer that pertained to it. The morning on Gregale had let up, and the break of evening came as we traveled.

Even though the danger was higher, I preferred to tackle missions when the sun was on the brink of setting. The heat during the day on Gregale wasn't too awful. It's just when you have to endure it for long hours, it gets to you. Long sleeved and legged clothing being an unspoken requirement to walk around this place without getting scraped and pricked due to the amount of vegetation contributed to the issue. It just felt as if my clothes stuck to me with every step. Though it could've been worse, I didn't wear a mix of brown and black like Trilby did; at least wearing green allowed me to somewhat blend in with Gregale's scenery and didn't suck up heat as much.

Ra stopped talking to Trilby about the waterfall's actual location, and turned around to walk towards Gwen and me.

"Can I call you Celery?" she asked as she walked alongside me.

Our teams walked for almost an hour without any chatting, aside from communicating what was essential knowledge. TRGT just refused to let us do anything, and I had no problem with that. I assure the yellow and gold Ra and that Gilford guy wore could've blinded me if I tried to do something anyway.

"If you want," I glanced at Gwen from the side of my eye. She seemed to have diverted her attention to looking at all the moss that grew on the trees, "shes called me that so much it's not even an insult anymore."

Ra would just relay new information to Trilby every so often, who'd relay it to Gwen and me as dead toned as ever. Gwen also refused to talk to me over this, guess she didn't enjoy, "Stand in the corner and watch," like I did. The moment I turned my head back to Ra was when Gwen happened to turn her head in my direction. If a gaze had a physical effect, then Gwen's would've decapitated me where I stood.

A tiny wail ripped through the air from nowhere. I jumped and knocked into Ra, who let out a yell that sounded similar to the wail. She grabbed me by the jacket, and gave me a single shove to where I was before. She brushed herself off, "I can't believe even a yawn is enough to set you off."

"I can," said Gwen.

I twitched a bit and sneered at Gwen, "Ignore her," I turned back to Ra, "so you came to this neck of the woods-"

Gwen broke out into cackle, everyone turned towards us. She slapped her knee, and hopped side to side towards me, "You're a riot Uncle Seeds,"

My eyes darted towards everyone and back at her, "I don't get it?"

Her cackling halted and her face became blank, "You don't get it?" she rubbed a temple, "I'm not sure if I should save face or just ruin the joke."

One of TRGT's members, Tawny, signaled for everyone to start walking again. Trilby started to walk in our direction instead.

Gwen sighed, "You see, you said-"

"We're in a forest, you asked why she came to your neck of the woods, cue the hyena laughter," said Trilby.

Gwen stomped twice towards Trilby, and pretended to pout, "Why did you-"

"You had something entirely different in mind for what 'neck of the woods' meant."

"You always cut me off!"

I couldn't tell if Gwen was still doing her whiny child impression, or if that's how she actually felt. Ra tapped me on the shoulder as the two argued over the interpreted merit of figurative language.

"Without any more interruptions," Ra looked at Trilby and Gwen for a second, "is it possible for you to launch yourself in the air and get, like, a bird's eye view?"

"Of course! It's like, the only thing I'm good at," I reached behind my back and knocked on Gyrate with my knuckles.

"Can I trust you to not burn down the forest, blow yourself up, or blow us up?" she asked.

I unsheathed Gyrate, and leaned on the haft as its head dug into the ground.

"Watch," I picked up Gyrate and ran through everyone. When I was clear of the others, I held Gyrate downward, its haft facing me. The blade hued with red and I hopped into the air. I got my feet on the blade in an awkward position as if I were on a pogo stick, only for a moment before being rocketed into the air made me loose footing. Even these heights were a norm to me. I scanned around as much as my second of hang time let me, no waterfall.

That's why I did these sort of things while near trees close to the height of the jump. I landed in the second set of branches near the top of the tree. From there, I was slow to sheathe Gyrate, and gripped both sides of the branch; my legs wrapped around it as I scuttled across through the leaves and twigs, into an open view. I took in a nice view of the boring foliage that comprised the forest.

Several minutes later I spotted it. The waterfall was right in the center of a location where the trees weren't as condensed, kind of far from where we were.

I hopped down. The others came through as I fell, my body fell slower and slower until my feet were firm on the ground.

"You levitate?" asked Tawny, "I thought your semblance was just blowing things up to be honest."

I groaned, "That joke is getting kinda old,"

Gwen appeared beside me from nowhere and nudged me with her elbow, "But Celery is _always _forever," she put an arm around my shoulder, "now when-"

Trilby cut in, "Celene you always said-"

Gwen stepped in front of Trilby and blurted, "Every damn time you-"

"Would you not interrupt me?" Trilby shoved Gwen aside, "Celene you always said your semblance was some type of mass manipulation?"

My heart was on the verge of bursting out my chest, "Yeah!" I jumped as high as I could, and fell to the ground about five seconds later, "I can make myself and any object I touch all light and stuff."

Trilby looked at me and nodded, "Yeeaah, can you define mass for me?" Gwen said wide-eyed.

"It's your weight," I said. Everyone looked at me, some with their eyebrows high, a certain archer grinned, "It's not weight is it?" I asked.

Trilby's face brooded.

"So yeah this waterfall, the one with the Grimm. That we need to kill to say, 'Mission complete!'," Gilford paused for a moment, "yay nay?"

"It's a yay," I pointed in its general direction, "over there, kinda far out."

The girl draped in the aqua blue cloak, Tenesea, spoke, "Great. Usually, the area is still in radius of where the map says, but this time it's another thirty minute walk!"

* * *

><p>I would advise everyone to not get fed up about your inaccurate map to the point you forget why you were going to your destination in the first place. A beowolf jumped in front of me and within that moment, an arrow pierced its flesh. Without a period to breath, a boarbatusk started to roll in my direction quickly.<p>

The first thing I did was place Gyrate's head towards the ground at a tilted angle. The boarbatusk had little room to change its direction here, either crash into a tree or clash with the blade. Even to be considered a low class Grimm, when it clashed with Gyrate I almost lost my poise because I wasn't expecting its roll to carry the strength it did.

Sparks flew everywhere as the Grimm and I struggled for dominance. Gwen readied an arrow from the corner of my eye. Gyrate's blade was going to need some attending to after this.

It deflected, and I knew it was going to get deflected. I pulled this off enough with Gwen to know that it only took a decent amount of outside force to make a rolling boarbatusk falter while it was put in this situation. The boarbatusk shook a bit and slowed. I forced it back two steps, and with all my strength I heaved it into the air

Its body sprawled out and an arrow landed right in its underbelly; its corpse landed in the trees.

"Now that they're gone," Gwen pointed to a giant web of string that covered four to five trees, there was a black box in the center where all the almost invisible thread came from, "Come out Tenesea!"

I covered her mouth, "This place was filled with more Grimm than we thought," I removed my hand, "Why would you shout?"

Gwen wiped her mouth and spat on the ground, "Man, if only you were this smart while in day to day life,"

The box started to vibrate. All the thread whirled back inside at a moderate pace. It sliced off some of the leaves and limbs of the trees. When it had collected everything, the box closed. Tenesea jumped down from a nearby tree and collected it.

"Could've gotten overwhelmed pretty easily if it weren't for your string trap weapon," I patted Tenesea on the back, "congrats on not being dead weight like Gwen always is, lets meet up with the others."

Gwen just coughed as we walked.

"Thanks, places that are confined work wonders for Pandora's Trammel," said Tenesea.

"Do you guys like, actually take the time to name your weapons?" Trilby's eyebrows furrowed.

I tapped Gyrate with my index finger, "Of course not, it named itself!"

Gwen plugged her ears and moved her head side to side for a few seconds while humming.

Tenesea smiled, "One of my cousins named it after I made it."

Gwen looked at her bow and chortled, "Ah yes Bow and Arrow, my old friends."

Tenesea burst into laughter, "I'm glad I'm getting to know you all face to face instead of through the explosion of the week-" she snapped her neck to the left of us, "The hell? Did another team get assigned out here?" Gwen and I immediately turned towards where she looked.

Tenesea deviated from our path a few steps, and observed the spot for at least a minute. Then she returned, scratching her head.

"At first I thought it was a Grimm, then when I looked there was a person and thought the others found us, not even a nanosecond passed until I realized it was someone entirely different and they ran off." Tenesea took a deep breath and exhaled.

"Seeing as how they ran we should stay alert," Gwen took an arrow from her quiver, "The best case scenario is that it's just another student running about. Worse case is that someone at school hates us enough to stalk us."

"I'd like to think it's the first thing, I can't imagine someone spying on us or something because we blew up a few things in school," I clasped my hands, "There's also the chance a professor sent them out here to watch us."

Tenesea stopped and reached inside her cloak. She took out a green dust vial and inserted it into a slot on the bottom of Pandora, "Lets hope."

We trekked on, I kept Gyrate clutched in my hands to match the paranoid atmosphere Tenesea created. The beowolves and boarbatusk weren't too troubling as long as we didn't let up while we fought them. A human or faunus was a different case, I didn't really have any experience fighting other huntsman outside of school mock battles. Which was just mandated to just within teams; me fighting against Trilby and Gwen. Fighting Trilby was the bane of my existence; once Argent hit my aura and started playing it were as if death crept all over my body. With Gwen it was about fifty-fifty, we never tried to fight each other aside from once or twice.

A loud bang shot through the air and an airborne beowolf knocked me flat onto the ground. I pushed its corpse aside and picked up Gyrate as soon as I sprung back to my feet. Ra put four gashes into every beowolf that came her way with the metal claw on her left hand. The other arm having a medium sized shield on it. She bashed another beowolf in the face and disappeared before appearing beside Gilford several seconds later, teleportation?

Well if it was, it was slower than what I'd expect. I'll put my money on invisibility for now.

Gilford swung his halberd in a three-hundred and sixty degrees, and knocked at least two boarbatusk and three beowolves away. He aimed his halberd at the two recovering boarbatusk, and the blade flipped down. A bright light emitted from the opening, and fired unto the two Grimm. The ground shook, yet the only things that seemed to be affected by it were the few Grimm remaining. Gilford raced over to the beowolves who were recovering from the tremors, he cleaved them in half with one swing.

Some type of balance granting semblance?

I looked over at Trilby and Tawny. Trilby lopped the head off one beowolf and weaved between two more as she ran; she then jumped into the air and spun around with Argent in hand, their heads fell off as she landed.

A boarbatusk kicked in the dirt with a foreleg and started to go into a roll, and connected right into a blindsided Trilby. She held her hip as she tried to recover quickly, but the Grimm circled around and slammed into her side once more. Trilby fell over onto the ground.

The boarbatusk stopped its roll, and made for a charge with its tusks lowered. An arrow hit it, and caused its attention to divert for a moment. Then a boomerang cut through the air and when it hit the Grimm, knocked it over before returning to Tawny.

Gwen fired another arrow right into its belly.

Gilford and Ra ran over and helped Trilby up. Her face was red and she limped towards us.

"Don't be so embarrassed Ms. Harmonics we all get beat on someday," said Gwen.

Trilby rolled her eyes.

"Alright, that's over," Tawny stretched his arms, "Lets get a move on, the sun's about to set."

"Yeah, there's someone out here with us too and I don't want to find out why they'd be out here," said Tenesea.

"What'd they look like?" asked Gilford.

"They ran off before I could make out any features."

"I know people who like to look around this place when they're bored," said Tawny. He began to walk and everyone else followed.

"Why would another student just run away when someone notices them?" asked Tenesea.

"Eh, shyness or something," said Tawny.

"It could've also been someone from the faculty keeping an eye on us in case we got lost," Gilford looked back at the waterfall, "I've heard it happen before- Gwen stop filling up your canteen, we're leaving!"

Gwen as always. No one realizes she disappeared until she's in the midst of doing what she sought out to do. She chugged the water the moment it filled up, and refilled it once more before running to catch up to us.

"So what, you guys gonna wait until we get back to drink or something?" Gwen burped into her elbow.

"I just don't trust drinking water from a spot where we just killed a bunch of Grimm," said Tenesea. Everyone else agreed with her.

"You're _too _paranoid y'know? Their bodies evaporate into nothing, they literally leave nothing behind." Said Gwen.

Tenesea folded her arms, "Don't care, I'm not drinking any form of leftover Grimm particles." Yet again, everyone agreed with her.

It took us around an hour and a half to get back to school, we all stood outside the gate into Bleary, the sky had turned to dusk. Some of the brighter lights came from the artificial ones that were placed upon the walls themselves. The lights shown onto the closest forest to the school. Somewhat illuminating the open field between Bleary and the forest. The hot air from before lowered and became, stagnant; neither hot nor cold, just still warm air.

"Team TRGT and TRGC, Professor Pewter. We're back from our mission," said Tenesea to her scroll.

The gates opened and we all walked inside. Some students greeted us, the others just hurried along.

"I'll stay with Trilby and write up the report, you all can go on ahead," said Tenesea. The rest of TRGT headed to their rooms without hesitation.

"We can talk about it in my room Tenesea. Celery, you don't have to come if you don't want to, Gwen, take a shower first. This isn't important enough for all of us to stand in front of Rigor to talk like our last mission," said Trilby.

Tenesea's eyebrows rose, "You all got a mission that important? Not trying to be mean, but your reputation makes me question that a tad."

Gwen leaned into my ear, "What _doesn't _she question?"

I snickered.

"Nothing too special, just running around the forest looking for stuff," said Trilby. She had begun to walk down the hallway and up the stairs. Tenesea made an attempt to call out to her, and made haste to catch up to her. Gwen and I were in no such hurry, and strode along the hallway up the stairs to Trilby's room at our own pace.

The door to their room was still open and we went inside. Trilby was sitting on the floor while Tenesea sat at a chair next to a small table with a lamp on it.

Gwen closed and locked the door behind us, and the first thing she did was try to plunk herself down onto her bed. Gwen sprung to her feet and caught her a moment before she landed, and threw her to the floor. She smelled her shirt and gagged.

"What a lovely way to treat your roommate," Gwen said from the floor.

"Take. A. Shower." Trilby helped Gwen up, opened the door to the bathroom, and shoved her inside. The shower turned on after Gwen stopped banging against the door while Trilby held it shut.

Several minutes went by until the shower turned off and the door cracked, "I need clothes," said Gwen.

Trilby gathered up the clothes, opened the door and remained impassive to Gwen's squeal, and handed them to her. A few minutes after that, Gwen came out in her pajamas and fell back onto her bed, "Way to waste everyone's time," she said.

"If they had to live with you on a daily basis they'd understand why your stink isn't as tolerable as the average person's."

Tenesea tapped a finger onto the table, "Sooooo…"

"Oh yeah, I gave a short version so everyone in the hall wouldn't think too much of it," Gwen yawned, "after Chef Seeds tried cooking with dust we were asked if we could check out an airship that managed to bypass the glyphs here."

Tenesea's eyes shot open, "Bypassed the glyphs? What did you find when you got there?" she scooted her chair closer, "Why your team in particular?"

"Gwen found the airship first while me and Celene fought an ursa. Then after we caught up to her she found an unconscious man aboard, before we could do a more thorough search of the thing two major ursa came to us thanks to someone honking the airship's horn," Trilby picked up a pillow and threw it at Gwen, "We fought them and ran off because we didn't want to risk anymore trouble. Gwen already had her aura shattered, as if that's surprising."

I laughed. Gwen dug her face into the pillow.

"At least I didn't get blindsided by a boarbatusk," Gwen lifted her head and threw the pillow back.

Trilby let the pillow hit her arm, "Anyway, we asked Rigor if we could do another search and I'm sure you can guess his response to that,"

"Surely it wasn't a no," Tenesea put a hand over her mouth as she faked her anticipation.

"That, and he gathered his own group to go investigate it," I said.

Tenesea crossed her legs, "Airship…strange person in the woods,"

"Here comes the conspiracy," said Gwen.

"Prove me wrong then, we can all go out and see if there's things left to investigate at the airship,"

"I'd like to and I'm sure-"

"I'm not sure if it's worth the risk to satisfy our curiosity," said Gwen mimicking Trilby's voice.

"Cute," Trilby pretended to throw the pillow and Gwen flinched, "We don't have classes tomorrow, and Rigor never said we couldn't go back. Just that it wasn't our mission anymore."

"I'm down to be a part of this episode of Gregale: Unsolved Mysteries," I said.

"You said that like we had a choice," said Gwen.

Tenesea shrieked with joy, "Amazing!" she slammed Pandora onto the table, "The sooner we put my anxiety about body snatching to rest the better!"

"What even is a body snatcher- How did you even come to that- I need water," Gwen rose from the bed and got her canteen from the floor where Trilby slammed her.

"Can I get a sip?" I asked.

"Faucets in the bathroom," said Gwen as she unscrewed the top.

"Please."

She handed me the canteen, "Two seconds."

I took the canteen from her and sipped it. The water was warm and tasted disgusting. Yet I found it hard to stop drinking it.

"Celery, a sip dammit." Gwen's face became alarmed.

There was only about a third left.

"Celene!" she shouted.

I burped into the empty canteen and handed it back to Gwen.

"Faucets in the bathroom," I said.


	4. 1:3 Assay: Chronic Comprehension

There was little sleep to be had after yesterday's events, I remained busy in the school's workshop repairing Gyrate's blunt blade throughout most of the night. A job such as that would only take me an hour or two of focused work on the norm. So of course this place had to make something so simple an inconvenience when I needed it the most. See, certain areas of the school are locked off during particular hours. Even on classless days, and Tenesea assured us that we'd want to go out as early in the morning as possible.

I adjusted my body on the tree's trunk and cracked my eyes open. Trilby and Tenesea were looking at the map while Gwen was, wherever. A nice morning, I closed my eyes again.

It required a little "finesse" to get into them, so Gwen's getting a twenty percent cut of the money my mom sends to me every now and then. Fair deal for her, fifteen percent less than if I'd got Gyrate to that state doing something dumb and needed it for class in the morning. Like cooking with dust.

Something rustled through the bushes at a slow pace. Its pace made gradual changes as it got closer to me. Then it broke into a full sprint, did a dive, and made a catlike shriek upon hitting the ground.

I opened my eyes, Gwen got up from the ground. She turned to me with a look of disappointment, "You knew it was me?"

"Knew it was something."

"Blegh, you're no fun when you're tired," said Gwen.

I nodded my head and shut my eyes once more. The wind came to pass through, and to an extent, drowned out Tenesea and Trilby's arguing with its whistle and rustling of leaves. Gregale mornings weren't hot, they didn't bake you like the evening would. A startling but nice day. Someone walked over to me, I peeked out of one eye.

"We finally found it," said Trilby as she hoped down an incline with Tenesea behind.

My arms hung loose as I removed myself from the truth. I groaned as stretched my arms overhead and to each side of my body. A squirrel and bird quarreled in a tree. They fell, and landed on the ground. Then they continued it up into another tree.

Gwen leaned into my ear as we ambled through the brush, "Ever imagined, like, a faunus in the woods prancing around with the animals?"

The mental image appeared as soon as she finished, my laugh came out stifled. I punched her in the side and exhaled to recollect myself. She looked delighted.

"Why would they need animals? They have each other!" I said.

Gwen's face contorted into horror and my body froze. It felt as if I could vomit, "I just said that to get a reaction out of you Celery," Gwen squinted her eyes at me, "What would your faunus pals think?" she pretended to pout.

The tension in my body escaped and a grin found itself on my face, "All zero of them would hate me," I said.

Gwen spoke with pride, "Celery the faunus hater, Celery isn't a race traitor!"

Trilby and Tenesea looked back, gave us a look, and turned their heads as if nothing happened.

"Calm down, I'm just having some fun mocking those anti-faunus speech rallies," Gwen grabbed Trilby's shoulders and said something. Trilby pushed her away .

"Make your jokes when I'm not around you two," she said.

We jumped through the thicket and slid down an incline onto sand. Some remnants of destroyed trees and disrupted sand from our fight with the ursas remained. Along with multiple footprints. The airship was there, appearing to have been undisturbed. From the outside.

"Amazing, didn't even know a place like this was on Gregale," said Tenesea.

"The map just shows it as nothing but tree around here," said Trilby walking past her, "Lets hope Rigor's group didn't disrupt anything too much."

"Ironic coming from a TRGC member," said Tenesea.

Gwen tapped her in the head with the butt of an arrow, "Don't forget you're at a remote location on a remote island," she tapped her with it again, "no one's gonna hear you scream." she squinted and pointed at her, "No. One."

I felt sorry for Tenesea. So I walked up to Gwen from behind, took the arrow, and hit her in the head with it. Then when she tried to take it away I gave it to her, and the arrow was so heavy she went head first into the sand.

She let the arrow go and got up, "I thought you said they only changed when you touched them," she said brushing herself off.

"They do," I replied with a short cackle.

It'd be a waste to Gwen to leave it there, so I grasped it in my hand and returned it to its original properties. She took it when I turned to give it to her. Gwen stared at me and tapped me in the nose with the arrow's fletching.

Metal clanked together and short burst of unpleasant noise caused all three of us to cringe. I looked behind me and Trilby stood outside the entrance to the airship with Argent out.

"Wow Fedora, you almost made me vomit," Gwen said as she trotted towards the airship.

I was prepared to follow behind her, and noticed Tenesea staring off into the woods.

"Whadya see?" I asked as I walked towards her.

"No, it's not the WUTEYA-C, those minds usually operate in Atlas. Slowly replacing the human-faunus population with a race of mechanoid beings."

My eyebrows rose, "What?"

Tenesea turned around, "Nothing. Think that those huntsmen Rigor got could be here?"

"Probably," I crossed my arms, "So you saw some people? I don't think Rigor's huntsmen would be creeping around on something like this."

Tenesea set down Pandora and stepped backwards beside me. She balled her left hand and I noticed the faint strands of thread around her fingers. Her fist opened, the box erupted and thread spread across the green thicket in a huge spider-like web.

The only entrance to this place was covered in string that would snare and attack anyone caught in it as if it were a conscious entity.

"They'd have to get past that if they want to try something- oh almost forgot," Tenesea snapped her fingers and the strings hued with teal. The color rippled back and forth across the web like a current, it set off a spark every other second.

"Now we can catch up!" She raced off to the airship.

Her demeanor flips like a switch. Was that some type of act that people did to look "unique?" I'd rather buy that than her actually believing crap like, "There's going to be a terrorist attack at a Vytal festival," or "The White Fang are actually puppets to humans who run their organization from the shadows."

To each their own.

As I had begun to take a step my shadow seemed to, look at me? Every time I stopped and turned away it seemed like it moved on its own. The mind is a very strange thing. I remember when I used to see shadow people a lot when I was younger.

The interior of the airship looked standard, with a few personal touches here and there. It wasn't too big of an airship, about twenty or thirty people could fit inside it. We went through a small dining room, to a room of maps, and into a navigation room. Some doors were open, and some required special access. Trilby told Gwen she wasn't allowed to be near it, without permission, the moment she saw the button for the horn. Gwen had mumbled something about looking at the maps again and wandered off.

As I took a better look inside, even if we wanted to leave this thing off Gregale we couldn't. I felt nauseous thinking about how long it'd take to learn how to pilot one of these things. So I just went to stare out the rectangular curved sea's constant sparkling made me even more nauseous.

So I went to get sit in a chair.

"There should be a device that documents flight around here," said Trilby, "Rigor likely took it, or this airship never had one."

Tenesea wheezed as she tried to get her words out, "Unsolicited visitors," she took a breath, "But this entire thing is probably being taken care of right now."

Trilby leaned against the inward curved wall, "Unless we break into Rigor's office or something we're not going to find much here, as expected,"

I spun in the chair, "At least we got to see the inside of it," I kicked my feet to the side for momentum and hit a button, the airship's horn went off. Gwen shouted "Yeah!" From wherever she was. Then Trilby put my arms in a hold and slammed me onto the ground. She might as well had teleported with how fast she did it. She whispered to me, "Get. Out."

So I left after she had gotten off of me.

We had pretty much looked through everything this airship had to offer anyway. Though Trilby loves to comb through everything, and Tenesea seemed to be bent on finding something to confirm one of her theories. When I got into the map room Gwen was wandering around knocking on the walls and humming.

"Find anything?" she asked.

"No we-"

"Honk!"

I walked over to the other side of the room and grabbed a rolled up map from a slot on the wall and threw it at her. She sidestepped the object, and it hit the wall behind where she was prior before falling to the floor.

"Were you guys fighting or something? I heard a lot of banging through the halls," she said.

"Not really, Trilby just slammed me onto the floor when I accidentally hit the horn."

Gwen peered out the room for a moment, "I heard a lot of running and talk of 'Getting out of the interlopers' and such," I expected a grin from her.

"What? No, she just said 'Get out'," I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, "You must've heard an echo for those 'bangs' too."

She started to stare at something on the wall to my right. When I turned to look there was just a pinned up map of Mistral, with my shadow overcast on it.

"Want me to move out the way so you can admire this fine cartography?" I asked.

She took a seat to the left of me, "You're fine," she said while putting both of her elbows on the table. After a few moments, she started tapping her finger on it while her head rested in the other hand, "Be a little more observant, Celene."

I glanced around the room. Nothing out of place, "Did you find some info from one of the maps?"

She practically studied the map. I looked at it again, nothing. Gwen got up from her seat a little and leaned forward.

"Celene can you move out of the way some?"

She called me by my real name again. I'd be foolish not to oblige to such courtesy. So I picked up the chair and walked backward against the wall.

Gwen got up and walked over to the map. She held an arrow in her hand.

"Celene you're kinda still in the way, can you move one more time?"

After I had relocated to where Gwen sat prior she started to nod her head at the map. She's figuring something out and not communicating with me at all. Such conflicting feelings, from polite to patronizing, as if she was trying to balance out her normal personality.

Then she stabbed the arrow right into the map. Someone let out a scream and my _shadow _started to run around the room. Gwen picked up her bow and fired a few at it. The shadow was ahead of her by at least an inch every time she fired.

The silhouette jumped from the wall and its outline of me started to resemble a mesh of darkness. It hit me in the face. Then it engulfed my head.

Darkness. That's all I saw. Not the same darkness when you turn off the lights. Not the darkness when you're outside at night without any lights during winter. Just pure blackness where no light was let through, no way for me to make out what the room looked like, and best of all: I couldn't hear anything besides myself.

I screamed and it was like yelling into a cup covering your mouth. Without a doubt the room was in shambles, I was running around in hysteria and could feel my body hitting things. After several seconds of this, my foot got caught on something and I stumbled. A force pulled me from behind and pushed me onto the floor. It held me there as I attempted to squirm and wiggle free.

The shadow entity _ripped, _it sounded like cotton being torn. It let out another yell, the light glared in through the entity's rip, and I was forced to close my eyes due to how intense it felt. More and more of the shadow was ripped before it let up and ran away. I coughed and just stayed on the floor, respiring.

The force, no, Gwen? Got off me. I opened my eyes little by little while fumbling to get up. Everything in the room was turned over when I completely opened my eyes. Maps were everywhere, some torn after they were knocked onto the floor and I tore them with my feet. The table was the only thing standing among the furniture, all the chairs surrounding it were knocked over or displaced.

The only thing missing was Gwen. Either she had gone to chase after it, or the shadow managed to get her. I don't want to imagine what I looked like while that thing had me. Neither did I want anyone else to experience having your senses deprived from you.

I ran into the hallway then outside the airship. Were Trilby and Tenesea aware of this? With all that chaos that went on, there's no way they could've missed it. It had all happened so fast. I hoped they were alright.

Something hit me in the back of the head.

It was Gwen, "You alright Celene?"

"Yeah," I looked around. My voice felt hoarse, "what…was that?"

"It's possible it could be a rare type of Grimm, but with this airship and our instances of seeing unknown people it could just be someone's semblance," said Gwen.

I folded my arms, "A semblance where you can mimic shadows? Or turn into some type of darkness?"

Either way, without a doubt, we should leave this place. It's one thing fighting creatures who were predictable for the most part. Another huntsman? Not a chance, even more so with their semblance. I looked at Tenesea's web of thread.

The electrical properties it had were gone and it couldn't even be described as a web anymore. Just a clutter of strings now, "We need to get out of here. Tell the others and leave as fast as we can, let Rigor and his people handle this," I said.

Gwen walked to the side of the airship's entrance and titled her neck, "All that commotion and you tell me they didn't come see what was going on immediately?" she asked.

Both of us bolted into the airship, again. When we got into the navigation room Tenesea and Trilby were both unconscious. A black smoke emitted from their mouths. Gwen went to Tenesea, grabbed the "tail" of it, and pulled it out. I followed her lead and went over to Trilby.

It didn't feel as I expected it to. Something smooth, cold, or slimy. Not warm and with a furry texture.

After a few minutes they both came to. I expected them to have reactions similar to mine, but instead of not being able to see they gagged and spat on the floor.

"Wait…I can taste again," Tenesea coughed, "I never imagined I'd get attacked by a shadow person. They're usually benevolent to me."

"We thought you two were fighting and then after a few seconds a blobby shadow just hits us both," said Trilby.

Tenesea coughed some more, "I felt Pandora trigger through my thread, I think that's what did it."

I sighed, "Then that means they were weakened and we're risking being here with every second. Lets just go."

They all agreed with me at the same time. We headed out and Tenesea hurried to collect Pandora, and like the incident with the ursas the moment we walked through the thicket we sprinted. Running through every plant that pricked and jumping over and roots or rocks that stuck out.

"It's back!" said Trilby.

They, darted through the canopy. On occasion they darted overhead to try and hit one of us. Gwen fired at it with her bow, Tenesea used the thread around her fingers to cover general areas around us before rewinding it when it was at max length, and Trilby let her sword hit the trees to cause short dissonances to stun it when it got close.

Of course I was useless in this scenario.

After we made it into the open plains Tenesea and Trilby did too. Gwen was running short on arrows and they just moved too fast for her to hit. The shadow came for us one more time, and then it just hit the ground right in front of us, we stopped in our tracks, the darkness dispersed from the huntsman.

From the darkness was a girl. She held a rubber stick in her and had orange and red furry long-pointed ears. A fox faunus? I didn't recognize her from the school, nor did the others seem to. The fox faunus put the stick in both hands and extended it to reveal a medium length metal rod.

I unsheathed Gyrate.

"If you're going to fight us then you should know we didn't find anything in that airship," Trilby clenched Argent in her hand, "we didn't find anything, if you didn't attack us we wouldn't have known about you either."

The faunus' smile was thin, "I know that! I'm just being kind of, petty?" she scratched her chin, "Yep petty, those two over there." She used both of her fingers to point at Gwen and me, "The white haired one especially, you just made me want to beat the arrogance right out of you."

Gwen puffed, "With all that skulking you did I'd say you planned on it from the start."

"Not really, I just needed to know how much you all would actually find," she flicked the baton against the air and electricity surged around it.

The girl's grin was as wide as ever, "Now _all_ of us can prance. Together."

Gwen, Tenesea, Trilby, and I got into a stance.


	5. 1:4 Assay: Composite Conflict

The air was still and hotter as the morning passed into evening. Gwen was to my left, Tenesea and Trilby were in front of us and adjacent to one another. No one moved for what must've been five minutes. It were as if the slightest hint of movement would set off strife. We stared at the fox Faunus, and she stared at us; even when she claimed to be serious her face looked as if this would just be a grand time for her.

That confidence she held taking us on while outnumbered four to one. A semblance that allowed her body to transform into a shadow-like state. She became faster, coming in direct contact with her would nullify a sense in that respective body part, and she could mimic shadows. The lack of visible damage when she went through Pandora, and was literally ripped up by Gwen was unsettling as well. We were in over our heads here.

Was her aura strong enough to endure all of that? There had to be a trade off somewhere within that semblance. She had to defeat us before that took its toll.

"I don't think you're willing to answer any questions," said Trilby walking from the path we came from towards her.

The Faunus tossed the baton in the air, Trilby froze in her tracks. The Girl caught it with her other hand, her voice was orotund, "Like I said, a _petty _reason." She extended the arm holding the baton behind her and bent her knees. Then within a blink of an eye she vanished, leaving a cloud of darkness where she was. The collision of metal and static sounded through the air; Trilby's hands shook when the baton collided with Argent.

The Fox Girl capitalized on this and followed up with another strike that disarmed her. Argent flew into the trees before it made a thunk against the ground to the right of me. She shoved the baton into Trilby's gut. Trilby went into a short spasm as the electricity surged within her. The she fell onto the ground.

Gwen ran off to the far left and fired an arrow. The Faunus transformed, leaving a pitch black smoke at her feet. The arrow went through her "neck", and she grunted before turning back to normal. No damage to her real form other than outside of visible discontent.

Tenesea ran behind her and threw Pandora's Trammel above the girl. It hooked onto a branch that over arched a tad over the Faunus. She gestured with her fingers and a cluster of threads shot into the ground. A web-cage structure formed around her with the same electrical dust properties like her previous trap. The Faunus turned to her shadow form and had to trudge to move through the cage.

The current that ran through the strings cracked and pieces of her flaked of into dark clouds of dust. Each step she took was followed with a groan of pain. I had to cut off her escape.

Gyrate became light in weight, I swung it behind me. Then tugged on its trigger and exploded it in short bursts, propelling me fast enough to close the distance between us. Her head _twisted_ towards me, and I assumed she was smiling by the way her cheeks rose due to the lack of a visible mouth.

Then she moved through the cage at a normal speed while laughing. Hints of pain could be heard through her voice as she progressed out of the string trap. A fake opening, how sly.

I swung Gyrate to my side and made it explode to send my momentum to my right. My feet slid across the ground before coming to a halt a few feet away from the trees on the side. The Faunus ran towards me while I was in the midst of recovery.

Gwen fired the last of her arrows. Two missed and one passed through the Faunus thanks to her semblance. Tenesea had gotten to Trilby's unconscious body in the middle of the scuffle and carried her back to where Gwen was on the open field.

Instead of our weapons colliding she dodged, changed her composition, and smacked a hand in my face. In desperation, I took Gyrate and spun around in a circle. An explosion for every complete spin to ensure she couldn't take advantage of my lack of eyesight.

The spontaneity of my attack must've caught her off guard. Gyrate's poll hit either her leg or hip, and she fell onto the ground. My eyesight came back a few seconds later, I had to shield them for a second before the sunlight stopped irritating them.

When that stopped, the Fox Faunus was staring me right in the face. An expression of satisfaction spread across her face, she'd recovered in a ridiculous time window. Her voice was low, "It's ok, at least you tried right?" she winked, "At least you're still standing."

Then she extended a hand, her voice was spirited again, "If I get too mad I _might _kill you all or something crazy like that," My eyebrows furrowed, she threw her baton under her right leg and caught it, "Just a joke greeny, lighten up." She backed up under the shade of a hanging branch, her body transformed for a second then back to her regular form. The semblance looked lighter than before.

I kept Gyrate out, I wouldn't fall for her deception again. A position that appeared lax where I could defend myself with ease could work for now. I glanced to the others, and Trilby had come too. She sat on the ground observing us.

"So what trick are you pulling now?" I asked

She sighed and started to look down, "Was it really that obvious?"

"Very," Gwen shouted.

The three started to walk over to us with Trilby detouring to collect Argent. Gwen had her dagger drawn, and Tenesea had to go wind up Pandora's strings. The Faunus just glared at them and sniggered.

"Gangs all here," said the Faunus

"All two of us," I replied

She shrugged, "Yeah, take your time."

Gwen moved beside me, "I hope you realize she's planning something else."

"What makes you think that?" asked the Girl.

"I can see it on your face," said Gwen leaning into her face.

The Faunus forced a frown with her fingers, "That was my natural expression, how ignorant," She folded her arms and twirled around, her voice sounded brittle, "Humans like you make me regret not joining the White Fang."

I spoke up, "Too late to try a guilt trip."

Her grin faded into the first neutral expression I saw her make. There were footsteps and I turned around. Trilby and Tenesea had arrived.

"I see we're having a lovely chat," Trilby walked up to the Faunus, "Are you done venting?"

The Girl poked Trilby in the stomach with her finger, "Bzzzz," she said, winking afterwards.

"But seriously, you stop fighting because I knocked you down. What's your goal?" I asked.

"I told you that before this all started," she flicked her baton to activate the dust inside, "I haven't even hit the white one yet." The Faunus left a cloud of darkness where she once stood. All I could see was a black blur darting back and forth between Gwen for several seconds.

The Girl stopped. Gwen, still in a daze, attempted to slash her with the dagger only for the Fox Girl to dodge the attack with ease. Countering with a swift blow to her knee with the baton.

Gwen fell to the ground yelling out in pain. The pain empathy decided to hit my knee the moment I saw what happened to her. I can't believe I just sat there and let a friend get beat on like that.

The Girl wiped her brow, "What a rush, sorry you all had to see that," she looked at Gwen who was still writhing in pain, "Take her and go back to studying ok?"

The smile on her face. Infuriating. It was one thing to be cocky, that's just a minor annoyance. It's just upsetting and makes me feel helpless when the skill to back up that mindset is there. Bleary was only thirty minutes away. I wondered if Tenesea and Trilby were thinking the same thing as me.

"Can I ask a question?" asked Tenesea.

"No." replied the Faunus.

"Not even a name?" asked Trilby.

The Fox Girl dwelled on it for a moment, "Marigold," She had yawned and covered her mouth, "I get the feeling you all aren't gonna get unless I make you, which is fine, because I wasn't actually going to let you all just walk away, obviously."

No one said anything. Gwen groaned as she writhed on the ground.

Marigold pursed a smile and flicked the baton against the air. The current surged around it.

In over our heads. Gwen and Trilby were already beaten up, the former wasn't even using her primary weapon. Tenesea could fight but Pandora was limited in an open environment like this, and I doubt we were fast enough to pull an escape.

I flipped Gyrate's pommel open and inserted more vials of dust from my waist belt into it. Then I pulled forward on its trigger to load them. Nothing more than a flat stick that was a third of the size of the haft that I pulled for explosions. Marigold yawned again, "Take the first move-"

I boosted forward and slammed into her, the collision knocked us back several feet away from the others. Then followed up with an overhead swing. Marigold dove away from the attack, it nicked strands of her hair in the process.

Once more, I brought Gyrate overhead where she was and a moment before I slammed it down I made it heavier. Soil and grass flew through the air and the ground shook for a second. When I spotted Marigold she had transformed.

She dashed and thrust at me with her makeshift stun rod. It rang throughout the air as it made contact with Gyrate's haft. Marigold then ran to my left. I anticipated another plunge with her baton and made myself lighter as I back stepped and just about glided backwards a few feet.

"So what's that gravity control or something?" said Marigold as she sprinted.

"I'll tell you if you tell me yours," I replied. She huffed and instead of striking with her baton, threw out a series of kicks.

Gravity, weight, mass, it'd have to wait until later. My body had an easy time avoiding each kick she threw out. The toll of controlling both Gyrate and my body crept on me every minute. Yet Marigold didn't even look tired.

I could see the Tenesea and Trilby racing to where we were as Gwen lagged behind them.

Marigold transformed after another kick and swiped at me with her baton. My body jerked back in an instant causing her to glance the front of my teal jacket. It didn't seem precise like her previous attacks, sluggish and sloppy like an amateur, her shadow form also was more or less gray.

A black box flew through the air and opened behind Marigold. A pillar of string shot out and hit her square in the back knocking her forward. I exploded Gyrate and swung as she flew straight at me.

Marigold activated her semblance, again, and I cleaved her shadow body in half horizontally. She didn't even scream.

I shivered and looked at Gyrate. Even if it wasn't her real body, she felt all the pain dealt to her. Getting cut in half and laying on the ground wide awake experiencing all the pain that comes with it, my stomach churned.

No one said anything while looking at all two parts of her. We waited, and she didn't change back. Marigold's body emitted moderate amounts of dark dust clouds. Trilby walked forward and started to cough when the wind blew it towards her.

"God, even her, um, particles? It tastes like fur." she said.

"So what do we do now that Celery killed someone?" asked Gwen with a limp in her walk, "should we bury her here and go back to Bleary?"

"We don't really know how here semblance works, she could just be comatose or something." I said while walking over to Marigold's…Everything.

"She's split in half and not breathing Celene," said Trilby walking behind me.

I turned around and Tenesea just lingered near Gwen swaying side to side while looking at the ground. One of my boot's bumped into Marigold's torso and I bent over to examine it. Despite the shadow contents from her body going into the air, the inside of her shadow form looked hollow.

Trilby sheathed Argent to her side and lifted Marigold's torso. More dust flaked off her body, I covered my face in response and still choked resulting in a few coughs.

"You'd think she'd change back after she died," said Trilby.

"Exactly, she _isn't _dead." I said.

Trilby patted Marigold's upper body, more dust flew as it made a soft muddled noise, "Fill me in Professor," she picked up Marigold's left arm and started flapping it with one hand.

She always took things like this rather well, when there wasn't imminent dangers anyway. Her utility vest was covered in Marigold's residue and did little to prevent it from getting on the tan shirt underneath.

"Well, her shadow body takes hits separately from the regular body right?" I asked. She nodded.

"So, what if we just caused enough damage that we actually shattered her aura. She fought a lot sloppier after our little break and her semblance transformation looked, faded, I guess," I craned my neck to look at Marigold's empty eyes, "and this is the result when it happens while she's in this state."

Trilby set the torso down, "If that's the case, you're ignoring the fact that she could pop back up any minute."

I stood up and brushed the black dust off my clothes, "Even if we run away what's stopping her from coming back again?"

Trilby snapped and gave me a thumbs up, "Kill her."

The monotony of her voice made it kind of hilarious and unsettling.

"Though we should head back and report this and hope a Professor-"

Marigold's body began to break down into a gigantic cloud of black dust. I covered my face and put my head on the ground, Trilby's coughing intertwined with the sound of rapid flaking shadow flesh. After it had settled down, I brushed my clothes off only to find out that I wasn't covered in pseudo-soot.

A metallic rod tapped my head.

"You got some things right, some wrong, and missed a lot more," said Marigold. She collapsed her baton and put it on her belt.

I stood up straight while looking at her, and Trilby stood beside me. She rubbed an eye and looked around at the others. Gwen and Tenesea came running and stopped in a stance with their eyes set on her.

"First, you didn't win. I held back on purpose for some of my hits," she gave an exaggerated finger wag, "Second, if you go back to Bleary and tell whoever about this, you'll regret it."

Gwen groaned, "How many threats have you made today that ended with you just joking around?"

"She beat the ever loving shit out of you so…" said Tenesea. She started playing in her hair and averted her gaze. Gwen smacked her in the shoulder with the butt of her knife.

Marigold looked at her sleeve as if she were checking the time. Then she looked up again, "You'll regret it because what's his name will make sure you don't start babbling about it."

Tenesea might as well had jumped, "I told you all Rigor was no good!" she swayed side to side while holding Pandora in both of her hands.

I looked at her, "I'm sure it's not because of the reasons you think," then I snapped back to Marigold, "Why should we believe you?"

She put a finger to my head and flicked me, "Why should I speak to _you_?" she faced Trilby, "Keep your underlings in check mam'."

"I'm only here to make sure they don't do anything stupid," replied Trilby.

Marigold gave her usual smile, "If that were the case you wouldn't be here now would you?" she clasped her hands, "I'm awful at explaining things so bear with me, You all know what's his name is trying to turn your school into something remarkable right? Of course you do. He's an prideful ass with delusions of grandeur." She paused for several seconds.

"This is going to be a lot of crap to explain, do you want an abridged version or the entire story?"

"Abridged, we'll ask questions as needed." said Trilby.

"Good, good. Now. What's his face-"

"Rigor." said Gwen

"Rickert- Rigor, doesn't want bad publicity for this place. I know you've all experienced it, the local CCT sends you inaccurate maps, Grimm population isn't properly documented, a very poor placement of glyphs, many other problems in general. How many students have gone missing or got mauled to death by Grimm and everyone's pacified into pretending it never happened?"

I took a step back when she said the last thing. She needed to get to the point already. My left leg shook a little and I sat onto the grass crisscrossed, I hoped it looked as if I was just getting impatient.

"It sounds like you're just playing on our gripes to get us to agree with you," said Gwen, "How'd you even know about Raz? I want to know how long you've actually been stalking us actually."

Why'd Gwen have to bring her up in all this?

Marigold flashed her a toothy smile, "I'll get to the terms for that later."

Terms? I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I didn't want to know what she had in store for us after this.

"Anyway, schools construction was half assed and you all have experienced most of it," she reached into her pocket and pulled out a scroll, "I'd tell you the inside details, but I think this'll speak for itself." She turned it on and pulled up a video.

"I recorded this around the time you all found the airship, they told me to watch out for Rindor- Rigor, and his buddies, to make sure they didn't catch wind of some stuff." She turned the screen over to us, Gwen and Tenesea got closer get a better view.

The video displayed Rigor walking among several other huntsman I sort of recognized. It seemed to be recorded from the ground's perspective where glimpses of a flat formless shadow blending into other shadows could be seen in some parts. They stopped at the beach and looked around.

"Those assassins and murderers went through the glyphs and crashed here from what TRGC has told me," said Rigor, "I knew they scoured this area, but I didn't think it'd be before our glyph set up was complete."

Assassins and murderers, I gave Trilby a concerned looked and she signaled with her eyes for me to keep on watching. Marigold saw it and paid no mind.

A guy in clothes too unfit for Gregale, a sleeveless red shirt and short black pants, asked, "Did the team you sent out tell you who we might be up against?" They had stopped outside the airship now.

"No, but these are the Vigils. Those who've lived around the southern coast of Vacuo and Vale have heard about them I'm sure," Rigor put his hands behind his back, "They've been gaining a reputation for hitting wealthy families and businesses, taking what they can by whatever means necessary. Tetra if you will."

A girl wearing a silver coat with a streaks of red at random parts of it spoke, "So far only twelve of them are known but authorities know there's more of them thanks to some evidence. Even then there's only decent info on like two of them."

"We're going in this pretty much blind. How wonderful," said a guy beside her.

"Most of their members aren't huntsman who fight head on. They're covert and work from the shadows," Marigold and Gwen let out short laughs, "Only fighting on terms they can control." Tetra replied.

"And if we were to engage them in a fight right now we're pretty much screwed?" the guy asked.

Rigor stepped up to the airship and the door opened, he turned around, "We have six of the most experienced hunters on Gregale here, and many more at Bleary. They won't even think about it."

A man in the back chimed in, his voice croaky, "It's nice to have confidence in the staff and students here but I don't think sending a team of first years was bright, Rigor."

Rigor laughed, "I didn't just send them out here, they agreed to bait out the cretins while a few other teams lied in wake for ambush. But as you've all read in the report, one of the Vigils possibly alerted some powerful Grimm, and that disrupted the whole plan."

We were sent on that mission to "redeem" ourselves for my accident. He said nothing about us being bait, and I know for sure we were the only ones out there. Rigor risked us for what?

"Makes sense how a team of three like theirs managed to kill two major ursa. They had outside aid." the man replied. They all laughed and walked inside. The video stopped playing a bit after.

"Cool right?" asked Marigold, "I have plenty more clips like that if you want to be more demoralized than right now. There's one where he implies your team and a few others are just low level grunts that are just here to pave for the better ones too."

"I'm so conflicted right now," said Gwen as she looked at the ground, "So what, we were like fodder so he could test the waters at the beach?"

"Or he made a bad call and wanted to save face in front of them," said Trilby.

"You guys are making me feel bad for begging you all to come out here…" Tenesea dug into the ground with the tip of her shoe.

I put a hand on her shoulder, "We agreed, and honestly, I think it's great that we know this." Tenesea gave sigh of relief.

"Marigold, you said something about terms before this?" asked Trilby.

She closed the scroll and put it back into her pocket. Then she took out a piece of paper, "Team TRGC is considered a tragedy, blah blah blah, mutual partnership," she ripped up the note and tossed it to the wind.

"Letters aren't my thing," she clasped her hands together near her waist, "Essentially if you all agree to help the Vigils repair the ship, we'll do a favor for you. Drop you off somewhere, slaughter the student body, even have you join up with us permanently if we like you enough."

"Marigold, no one here wants to be murderers. Even if our headmaster turned out to be an asshole that picks favorites." said Trilby. I could hear how she struggled to keep her voice from having emotion for once.

Marigold grabbed her hands, "That's stupid, you'll only be stealing parts we need to repair the airship. Parts we know they have. If we wanted people here dead, we'd do it ourselves than rely on a couple of random kids." She let go of Trilby's hands and put one hand on my shoulder, "You're a technical murderer anyway, I mean out of all the methods you could've used, you cut me in half!"

I rolled my eyes. Marigold dropped her hand to her side.

"Not only that, I could even teach you things. Better than the useless garbage you all learn in that prison. Any brain dead idiot can read a book and watch a video to kill a brain dead Grimm," she bumped her chest with a fist, "It takes skill to fight another person who can actually think, get the experience from me or my buddies. Then you go to a school actually worth a damn like Beacon or Shade if you want."

We all looked and gestured at each other as if we were discussing this.

Gwen broke the silence, "I hate this place. I hate the school," she took a breath, "Either we get thrown into a pack of Grimm like Raz one of these days, " I wanted to slap her , "or leave this school with nothing. I'm on board, but I don't like you either Mari."

Then Tenesea raised her hand, "I can't, you all don't really interact with the other students so I can see how you all don't have much to lose in this. But I can't abandon TRGT," she lowered her hand, "Sorry."

"I didn't expect you anyway," said Marigold, "And I think you all know I was just joking around with the killing you thing. This baton isn't good for things like that," she patted the pocket her baton was in, "If you even decided to talk it wouldn't be anything they don't already know. I'm well-known among them and they already know our goal."

Trilby spoke up, "And if we left it would hurt them more than Vigil. Since we'd have more knowledge of the school than we have about your group."

"Bright girl!" said Marigold, "I'm going to assume that's a yes from you and Greeny, don't make me wrong."

"I'm in." said Trilby.

My eyes darted around, everyone was fixed on me. I gave a nervous grin, "On Gregale, all is one and one is for all." I stammered as I spoke, "And every tragedy is the start to every miracle."

Marigold acted as if she wiped sweat from her brow, "Easier than I thought, trust me, I've sorta done this before and it goes south fast. People end up with their entrails places where entrails shouldn't be, it's awful!" She giggled while reaching into Trilby's vest to take out her scroll.

She covered the screen from Tenesea, "Over here is where the base is. If we need to discuss something with you all, like now, you'll come here in person. We'd contact you through the scroll but I think you all know the local CCT tower here is monitored."

Marigold looked at Tenesea, "You might as well go now. It's easier to believe a lie when you don't know the entire truth."

Tenesea gave a short wave before running off in the direction of the school. Marigold waited until she was out of sight before resuming.

"We took a lot of supplies off the airship after it crashed, so we can supply you all with dust or whatever you need that we might have. We also have weapons and tools for modding them if you care about that stuff, any questions?"

We shook our heads no.

"Good, that's all. You need to come with me so I can show them you're on board," she said.

I felt cold. We were just going to get things to fix their airship, but things don't always go as planned. I looked at Gwen. We were becoming rogue huntsmen alright. Then we'd leave this shithole to do what we wanted.

All of this because I tried to cook with dust.

* * *

><p><strong>Just a note: This is the end of the arc one. I want to establish TRGC more as characters than what they are now, and I want the shift in tone to be as natural as possible. I'm not sure how long the story will be. I think four or five arcs with ten or so chapters each is enough, but that depends on how the scope of things changes as I write. I've also been thinking about writing back story chapters for characters after arcs or certain events. I also haven't forgotten about rewriting the first chapter. I have a ton of ideas for how to rewrite it and can't really settle on one at the moment. For anyone who bothered to read this, criticism is highly welcomed. As I said on 1:0 and 1:1, there is no point in me writing if I do not get better. <strong>


	6. 1:T Reminiscence: Trilby Sharp

Dust? Dust. I can count on my fingers the amount of times I actually used the stuff.

The instructors here on Mistral always said that I should become innate with dust, aura, and semblance. Not just the latter two. There was never a time where my aura backfired on me. Spatial awareness, honed skills, and common sense were all I needed to become a huntress.

I started to slump down at my desk and prompted myself to sit up straight at the realization.

"Beowulves might look fierce but they are in fact considered to be among the weakest of Grimm by huntsmen and huntresses." said Professor Carmine. The man switched the pointer to his left hand and tapped the screen with a projected image of a beowolf on it.

"They're quick, ferocious, and commonly hunt in packs. Do not take these Grimm lightly for a second, many aspiring huntsman and huntresses in training have lost their lives to them." Carmine glanced my way. I stared at him with my arms folded on the desk, the other students nearby started to laugh.

"Here we go again," said one under his breath.

"Wonder what she's gonna say today!"

Professor Carmine began to walk down the aisle to where my desk was. "Miss Sharp, I see you're not taking notes again."

Pressure began to build up inside my chest. The urge to run was always disgusted me. Leave and never comeback, it was all too familiar. But I never acted on it. Resolving my own issues with my own hands was something I told myself I would do since I was young.

I took a breath through my mouth and exhaled.

"I spoke to your father about this a week ago. You started off well but a few days ago you're slumping back into old habits," he said, with a fluctuating tone.

I stared at him.

"No quips Sharp?" His tone lowered at the end, only keen ears would have caught that last bit on uncertainty. Surprised I was not playing into his hands? Teachers here always had one student that they would attempt to make examples out of for not acting as they saw fit. Understandable, unless they were doing something that worked just as well as what was being taught.

I averted my gaze from Carmine to the projected image of the Grimm. No need to waste my breath. I know myself better than everyone else, the reasons why I did things this way. Crippling myself to appease arbitrary expectations was not a thing I was about to do.

"I agree Miss Sharp, I will go back to teaching," said Carmine walking down the aisle. He stood in front of the projector and pointed his pointer at me. "If you believe sitting in your seat and staring at the screen in the back of class and then throwing away the strategies and tactics you learned, no _heard_, in favor of doing your own thing then be my guess."

My hand shot up without a thought. "Well-" my voiced trilled so I cleared my throat.

_One tone, one tone._

"Sorry about that. Well, I've been training nonstop since a few years ago and I'm still enough alive to attend this place. I mean, would you change something when it has always worked for you? I don't know how many times I have to repeat that to you people." I put my hand down.

The other students were stifling their laughter for what was to come. He would not let me get the last word like that. Especially one that demeaned him as an educator.

"I'd like to remind everyone that the graduate exam is a few years away. Stay diligent," said Carmine. He went back to review lecturing about more Grimm and strategies to defeat them.

I looked at the clock and slumped in my chair, again, without realizing it. All the other students just sat there, writing down everything he was saying without a thought in their heads. I wish I could've sighed, but sometimes it just came out as a tweet. People do not learn by staring at a board. They learned by _doing_. Practice, repetition, and experience.

Sitting in classrooms like this all day was limiting. When I managed to discover my semblance I did not read books upon books about what to do and what not to do in constructed scenarios. My dad made me keep at it on a schedule, at first I tired myself out making simple sounds that were similar to four years olds on a recorder, but now I could sustain those sounds as if I were playing instruments from my aura. Using my semblance to aid my attacks was the next step. I could already do it to a degree.

Sometimes I used my semblance on accident despite all my practice thus far, limiting how much I spoke was the duct tape to reduce the chance of my semblance activating and my voice to jumping all over different pitches.

The bell rung and took me out my thoughts. I had tuned out Carmine entirely and before I knew it class had ended.

"Alright you all, that's it for today's lesson, do prepare yourselves for the future."

My body sprang up and I was one of the first to hit the door. More and more students poured into the hallway the closer I got to the school's exit. Some of them lived in the dorms on campus. I always wanted to do that, but that would be a waste since I live several minutes away.

I lived in a swamp with a small village on the outskirts of it. Dad went there to get food or spend time with friends. Every now and then I used to go with him to play music for everyone.

I came to a pond of muddy water, I took a few steps back and started to run. When I was two steps from the edge of the pond my knees bent and I leaped onto several rocks like a dream, all the way to the other side of the pond. My legs sunk and made a splash when I landed, the tedium of swamp life. The green water came up to my ankles leading to me exerting extra effort towards moving. When a tree came by I would use both of my arms to push my body forward a few inches, every little thing helps.

There was more solid land than swamp water after several minutes of this. A little water still came from under my feet with every step though.

My house came into view, a small two story log cabin with patches of rot here and there. I ran the rest of the stretch there, then when I got to the door I used the rusting doorknocker.

Dad answered the door in some sort of welder get up with his arm behind his back. He stared at me, I caught his cheeks rising through the mask.

"It's done, I finished when you were at school!" he said, his voice muffled.

I responded without thinking. "Really?" I said, my voice vibrated.

He moved his arm from behind his back and brandished a sword, he handed it to me. I almost dropped it and he chuckled. The edges of the blade were not completely attached to the center of it. On each side of the blade there were holes of multiple sizes, I looked closer at the openings and saw small dark tubs connected to each hole from the bottom of the blade. There was also circle shape near there that was a translucent glass in place where I could make out more of the sword's tube connection system.

"It works the way we planned it?" I asked, looking at the sword from different angles.

"Why wouldn't it Trill?" said Dad.

I stepped backwards looking at the sword and bumped into a tree. Turning around, I grasped the sword in both of my hands and raised its hilt parallel to my head. I straightened my posture and bent my legs, I could see my red aura around my arms from the corner of my eyes. The mechanisms inside the sword started moving and the edges of the blade expanded with clicks and ticks.

"Trilby I don't think a tree is good for the-"

The circular core of the sword glowed red, I delivered a flurry of strikes at the tree. Every hit caused the sword to reverberate a B flat. My mind wondered on to other notes and more sounded out from the blade.

C, D, E flat, F, G…

I stabbed the sword into the tree at A and let the note play before removing it. The tree had deep cuts at multiple angles with a deep incision in the middle of it. I gazed at the tree and feel to my knees. The sword dropped onto the ground beside me.

"Dad, it didn't work. We'll have to change it again."

He walked over and looked at the tree for several seconds, then he gave my head a single light pat. "Trill look." He pointed at the tree. "It's wilting."

I looked at the tree. It wasn't obvious at a first glance. The leaves were starting to dry up and the bark began to rot. I felt an invigorating force race inside my body. An uncontrollable ear to ear grin came onto me.

"Now lets make it better!"

* * *

><p>Professor Rigor walked across the stage and faced us, a giant screen was behind him. "Now, future pioneers of Bleary, comes the time to form you all into teams for the remainder of your years here." He directed towards the huge monitor with an open palm. "Your names have been placed into the database and will be randomized to form your teams. The level of your skills and style of fighting haven been taken into account for this." He then <em>flapped<em> his coat and walked off the stage, some students laughed.

The screen turned on and the auditorium's lights dimmed. Chatter from students came to steady whispers. The screen displayed a transforming cube with the words "processing" before the list teams appeared. Teams were categorized in a type of ladder, with some teams to the side. The students had a mixture of oohs and disbelief.

I recognized a few of the top faces. They were skilled huntsman and huntresses from my point of view. One of them, the Tetra girl, tried talking to me once. My body got anxious when that happened, and I felt as if someone as good as her would start to criticize my methods of training so I made a blatant excuse and went away to calm myself.

My team wasn't on the chart but near the lower midsection of it. I was designated leader and was overjoyed at the fact then I read the name "TRGC," did the machine make an error in processing this? I assumed it was some weird alternate "contextual meaning," to the word, like how Bleary meant we'd, "Make our enemies bleary to their knees!"

The names below mine startled me even more than TRGC. Raz Keira, a girl who with hair black hair that covered her eyes and was a mess. It was like she hadn't gotten a haircut in years. She had always ran off during the trials, and the teachers never seemed to care after the first eight times.

Gwen Blanch, I was well aware of her. She made her discontent with this place very well-known though I think she just says that for the sake of it. Her attitude and look almost made me believe she was a Schnee until she lectured some guy on the entire history of her family the second day here. Speaking of that and looking at her image closer, I noticed her hair wasn't all that white in reality. It seemed to be beige, at least with the camera's lighting.

Then, Celene Seeds. I saw her performance, she was ok. Wouldn't be memorable to everyone if she wasn't so pretentious and overthought everything. A lot of accidents and misunderstandings could be traced back to her eight times out of ten.

I swept the auditorium for them. It wasn't too big, and I managed to find Celene and Gwen on the second sweep. Celene being four rows behind me. She waved when I spotted her, Gwen was on the far left in section of chairs to my left staring at a guy beside her in disgust.

Professor Tulip ran down the aisle and hurried onto the stage. "Remember to check your scrolls for your room and locker numbers and to send one of your members to collect the keys and combinations for them in the main office!" he said, his voice shrill.

The lights turned on, and the room was hit with a sea of chatter as chairs screeched against the waxed floor. I got up from my seat and slipped through the crowd to get to Celene. She caught a glance at me and left her chair, we meet me halfway.

Celene gave a smile that showed some of her teeth and extended a trembling hand. "Hey!" she said, taking a quick breath.

I shook her hand and wiped the sweat on my pants.

"My fault."

"It happens." I replied. I looked over to where Gwen was but couldn't see through or over the crowd. "Hey, Celene, did you see Gwen Blanch?"

She looked past me to get a glimpse of the screen. "She was somewhere over there," Celene pointed to the same section of chairs I saw earlier. "I can show you c'mon," she grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the crowd of students.

Her grip and strength were a lot stronger than I would've expected from a scrawny girl half my height. It was like my _body_ was being pulled to go along with her and I'd have to fight to break off from here. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

Gwen had laid her entire body onto four other chairs, her right hand propped up her head. I was about to introduce myself when she put a finger up and pointed to the screen. "You smell that?" She got up from her bed of metallic chairs. "It's…I forgot."

I tried to extend my hand but Celene still had a tight grip on me. She noticed and let go as if she'd done something terrifying." We kind of know each other so we don't have to drag this out."

We shook hands, Gwen started to look around.

"So where's mop head?" she asked.

I tilted my neck. "Who?" I asked.

"You know, never here, doesn't seem to like shoes, looks like an octopus and her hair became one creature." said Gwen. She pointed at the general direction of our team on the screen.

Celene laughed. I shot her a quick glower, she started to do obvious fake coughs into her elbow. Gwen tittered and started to wheeze herself causing Celene to laugh into an actual coughing fit. Their coughing slowed after a couple of seconds. Celene hunched over and hit her chest. Then she rose and cleared her through.

I grumbled to myself at how light they were taking the situation. It was great that they were getting along well at least. Better to deal with two jokers in arms than two at each other in the throat.

"OK," Celene put her hands together with a clap that was lost in the sea of noise around us, some of her messy dark green hair covered her left eye. "Maybe Raz went to go our keys or something?" she said. Then she brushed the intrusive hair away from her eye.

"Pfft, the entire school gathering in one room is the perfect scenario for her to run off to who knows where," said Gwen. Celene nodded in agreement.

I made a conscious effort to not show any form of discontent. I hope she had a good reason for doing this. Gwen and Celene were kind of obnoxious but were here at least. I pulled a chair from a row I was behind and sat in it while the two talked about where she could be. Well I can't judge, everyone has there reasons for being here the way they are.

A team of three sounds hilarious though.

"Hey!" I said. "I'm going to get the keys. Where are you two going to be until then?"

"Nowhere important," they replied at the same time. The two looked at each other and grinned.

I stood up. "So here?" I asked. The two, again, agreed in unison.

I left the auditorium and inched through the crowd. The hallways were wide for a currently small school, every step made a soft echo against the checkered marble floor. There were a handful of students in the halls talking and loitering around lockers or windowsills. I walked pass the cafeteria and into the school's sole rotunda where all the main hallways and stairs connected; Bleary was small and felt so large at the same time. My standards were likely lowered thanks to living in a swamp for most of my life.

Rigor's office was located on to my left, right beside the stairwell that led to the dorms on the upper floor. Several students formed a line outside the office with four teachers near them. I got at the end of the line and waited for what felt like forever.

When it was my turn I stepped inside Professor Rigor's office. It was a fairly spacious and typical office. Desk in front with a scroll and clutter of folders, a few cabinets in the back, and another room for what seemed to hold a printer or copier.

"Yes Trilby Sharp is it?" asked Rigor. He searched inside the desk's drawer and the sound of jingling keys clanked together while he shuffled his hand through it. "Ah! Here they are." He held a ring with two keys on it. "One room for two alright?"

I took the ring of keys from him. "Thanks Rigor, have you seen Raz Keira around?"

"I presume she's one of your teammates? Excuse me I'm still trying to learn your names." He rolled backwards a little in his chair.

"She has…wild hair and no shoes." I said, adding movements to my description. "I've only seen her once or twice so I don't know much about her-"

"Ah yes _Raz_." Rigor got out his chair and started using his scroll. "Uninspired and lacks a clear goal. I spoke with her earlier when Professor Pewter brought her for skipping the ceremony. She must've gotten upset and ran off somewhere to hide after that."

"Thanks, I hope I can change her attitude towards this once I finally meet her," I said.

"The world of huntsman will chew people like her out the whenever reality decides to hit. I hope she leaves before that happens."

My arms fidgeted at his response. The way he'd said that, it reminded me of Carmine. I didn't want her to just quit. No one goes through all this trouble to get accepted in an academy for nothing. That also puts more strain on TRGC. I gave my thanks once more and left the office.

I had to endure four years of this.


	7. 2:0 Slink: Direct Deposits

We were walking from one unspecified spot on the map to another unspecified spot that was north-east to it. Marigold and Trilby lead in front while Gwen limped to my left. The evening was still fresh going by the sun but Trilby put emphasis on haste here.

I noticed under her silver field coat, the gray long sleeved undershirt had its left sleeve missing and her black pants had no right leg. Instead, there was a thin black fabric wrapped around them. It didn't seem to be ripped either, were they were tailored that way?

"Hey Mari," I waved my hand in the air. She didn't look back, her ears just twitched. "What's with your getup?" I asked stumbling over my words near the end.

"If I answer that will you answer my question?" said Marigold. She craned her neck in my direction with a grin on her face, partially covered by her hand.

Gwen kicked a rock that stumbled into some bushes. "Haven't you been stalking us since your airship-"

Marigold put a hand up and extended her index finger. "Don't answer my questionable question with a question of questionable concern from someone who has a questionable position in a retrospectively questionable conversation please."

My mouth sort of hung open partially while she said that. Gwen mumbled something under her breath, and I wiped the drool away from my bottom lip. "So, my question." I said.

"I'll answer yours if you answer mine," Marigold replied giggling.

The way she said it made my body feel uneasy. I cleared my throat. "So, your clothes looked as if they were made with the lack of a sleeve and pants leg in mind."

She put her hands in the pockets of her coat. "They are," she replied.

"So is it for fashion, hidden meaning?"

"Neither. We hit a clothing factory, this was the result I found after we shut down all the machines." She craned her neck to look at me. "So!" She released her hands from the pockets into the air, almost smacking Trilby in the face. "Now it's my turn," she said with an attempt at a deep voice. "Why'd you come to this school Greeny?"

"Mom pushed me to come here. She thought I'd have a better chance making a name for myself if I went to a new school," I said with a sigh.

"Ah," She replied. We made it to a split, and Marigold stopped to look at both paths for a second. She pointed left, and we followed her lead once more. "My mom tried to get me and my sister to take up cooking, but we kept burning everything. So now me and my sister invest our lives into a better industry."

I could see Gwen's eyes widen. "I feel sorry for your mom for having to deal with two of you."

Marigold ripped a decent sized branch off a tree, as if it were paper in a notebook, and tossed it behind her. Gwen blocked it with her hands and grunted in pain. "Great now I'm bleeding," she said, holding up the bloody hand.

"Lap it up or shut up dammit," said Trilby.

Gwen kicked her foot into the ground. I shielded myself from the flying chunks of leaves, twigs, and dirt.

"Harmonica, you and Pansy'd get along great! You both take everything so seriously," said Marigold. We got to another split, and she pointed left again.

Hard to imagine someone like Trilby turning to this line of work. Well, people who are at the end of their luck due resort to any means necessary to live. So it wouldn't be too far fetched. I'd just assume she meant for that to be taken with a broad sense for now.

The path got narrower to the point we had to walk in a line behind one another. After several minutes it widened to circular field with trees far taller than I thought could be on Gregale. They blocked out the sky in its entirety, there were lights set up here and there around their trunks illuminating the area to a decent visibility. I could see about four tents and a log shack as we got closer. There were six people sitting around outside, three laying on blankets with the other two talking near the log shack.

"Mari, I thought the video said there were twelve of you?" I asked.

Marigold stretched her arms. "Thirty two members in total. Twelve are known. Eight took an airship for a cruise and landed here," she said.

"You were returning from a job when you ran through the glyphs and ended up here, didn't you?" asked Trilby.

Marigold's grin _tried_ to turn into a frown. She shot daggers at "Harmonica". "Hey, Pansy," she said, "Got a friend for you!"

The loitering Vigils woke up, and the ones talking turned to look at us. One broke off the conversation and began to walk towards us. Instead of having fox ears, Pansy had a fox's tail with the same coloring as the fur on Marigold's ears. However, whereas Marigold's long hair was a dark orange, Pansy's was green like mine, except darker. She stood and stared at us with her hands behind her back.

Pansy had dark rings around her eyes and even wore similar clothes to Marigold. Except hers were actually finished and her silver coat had red streaks in it.

Her mouth hung open a little as her eyes looked back and forth at us. She wiggled at finger at Gwen. Pansy talked in loud whispers "Limping and wounded. Too low on the pyramid to be anything," she said.

Gwen flinched and started to tug on her hair.

Pansy moved her finger in circles at me before stopping. "Poor posture and looks like she has better places to be, _pretentious_!" she said. I would've been mildly upset if she sounded like she belonged here.

Then she moved her finger to Trilby.

"Looks like she's ready to be a winner and she is!" She looked at Gwen and I. "You two, piss off or something." Pansy then made a shooing motion. The red bracelets on her arm clanging together. Then her eyes moved to Marigold. "Did I do it right?" she asked, her voice became somber.

Marigold ruffled her hair and gave a short life. "Of course not!" she said, bearing a toothy smile. Marigold looked behind her and shouted, "Denim!"

"He's in the workshop," said Pansy and another Vigil far off.

"Of course, I'm so stupid," said Marigold. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Pansy patted her on the back. "You're not dumb, it's just your four ears that make you look dumb," she said, low enough only for us to hear.

"Four ears?" I asked at a similar volume.

Pansy signaled for me to be quieter and pointed to Marigold's human and fox ears on her head.

"I never noticed that, and it's kind of creepy now," said Trilby. "Can you like, hear, out of all of them?" she glanced in the general direction of Gwen and me.

The usual smug grin appeared on Marigold's face. "I had four ears my entire life." She put her hands in the air. "How would I know?"

A bright flash of light came from the workshop. My vision turned white for a few seconds. I panicked and rammed into someone, both of us fell to the ground. Some of the Vigils cursed aloud at Denim for the abrupt flash.

When my vision came to, I had crusty red flakes on the side of my mouth. I gagged a little and wiped it off. Then I got off of Gwen and helped her up.

"Thanks Celene," she said. I knew she meant that two different ways.

I nodded, Marigold signaled for us to follow her over to the workshop. Pansy trailing not too far beside her. Marigold knocked on the door when we got to the log house.

"Comin'," said Denim's muffled voice.

Marigold cracked open the door and then slammed it open with the side of her fist. We stepped inside, Gwen shutting the door behind us. Denim looked like a scrap robot out of a comic book while in his crafting suit. Only his eyes were visible from the narrow yellow tint of the square mask's visor. He took off his bulky mittens and tossed them onto a nearby counter and lifted up his mask.

"I'm surprised they got on board so easily, you sure they're up for this?" he asked Marigold.

"Of course!" responded Marigold. "You'd think I'd pick a bunch of morons for this?"

"When you showed us those videos, skill wasn't one of the reasons you wanted to get them," said Denim.

Pansy opened a drawer and took out a notebook. "I wrote down all thirty. Want me to read them off again?"

Denim took the notebook from her and tossed it back into the drawer. "No," he said.

Pansy gave pleading eyes to Marigold, who responded with a smirk.

"We can ignore all that, seeing that they're here that means they're on board with this. I know Marigold already gave you three the rundown." He opened a cabinet and took out a sheet of paper. "We need these two parts, and we put general locations in your where you might find em'."

Trilby took the list from Denim and started to read over it. "We can get one part from the storage room in the school's work shop, and a printer?"

"Yeah, them fuses are made pretty cheap these days," said Denim.

Gwen leaned over to look at the list. "Eh, we can get all of that, like, today," she said.

I tapped Trilby on the shoulder and she gave the list to me. We needed to find a fuse and a dust torque. Makes sense I guess for the list to be so small, the airship wasn't that damaged. I handed it back to Trilby.

She waved the paper back and forth. "There's a catch here that you aren't telling us, why can't you just do this yourself?" she asked. "I can understand the covert thing but why can't Marigold just sneak in with her semblance, take everything, and sneak back out?"

"Take a look at Pansy's coat," said Marigold pointing at her sister. "Look familiar?"

I glanced at Pansy. "White coat with some red in it, what about it?" I asked.

Gwen smacked her forehead. "Celery there's a reason we don't ask you to remember things," she said. "Did you guys get in a fight and kill Tetra before stealing her coat or something?"

The three Vigils laughed in unison. The three of us just looked at each other in confusion.

"You remember that video I showed you all? Pansy was with me too if you noticed. She has a hard time maintaining a human looking shadow," said Marigold.

"Fuchsia and Rust told me to keep watch on her since she had the most knowledge on us the other day," said Pansy. "I moved at the wrong time while stalking- following her and she noticed. Then I kinda panicked and snatched her coat while running away. So I'm sure shes told the school to be on the lookout for any strange shadows."

"You panic and your first instinct is to steal something?" I asked.

Pansy's tail started swinging left and right. "Not funny, out of all the faunus jokes you picked a low hanging one," she said, choking out her words. My heart could've melted. The way she said it was too cute. I'd be friends with her if she wasn't a career criminal.

"She's not racist if that's where you're going, Celery just doesn't think when she says things," said Gwen.

"_Ever_, that's why she's encouraged to keep her talking to a minimum," Trilby chimed in.

Pansy pouted, but nodded in understanding.

Marigold clapped as hard as she could. "Alright! Let's get this shit show on the road. You three need to be back in several hours and it takes two hours to get from here to Bleary." She went and got a crate from the stack that was in the corner of the room and placed it down in front of us. "First thing I'm gonna teach today is how shit you guys are, then how shit you are as a team, and finally how shit you are compared to _me_."

Denim sighed and started to look over some blueprints.

"That's mean Marigold," said Pansy, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Marigold removed the hand from her shoulder and looked at us with one eyebrow risen. "There's no excuses for failure in this class, Pansy." She walked between us and kicked open the door so hard I thought she broke one of its hinges.

We followed behind her. Trilby took out her scroll and looked at it. "Marigold our curfew is in three hours," she said, putting the scroll back into one of her vest's pockets.

"What? It's still broad daylight out," said Marigold.

I looked up and could see tiny patches of a setting sun through the canopy. "Guess we spent too much time getting here and talking about stuff in there," I said.

Gwen started walking backwards towards the exit path. "What a shame, guess we'll have to come back next week," she said.

Marigold groaned and she slumped over. Pansy's tail made a rhythm as it swiped back and forth against Marigold's pants leg.

"You losers lucked out today but don't think we won't be communicating consistently. Me and Pansy will be popping up every now and then when you're in the forest. Keep those eyes peeled," she said, sounding tired.

Pansy walked over to me and whispered in my ear, "If only you s-shits could see in the dark." Her tail then swiped at my shin rather hard. My heart almost gave out again.

Dammit, I can't believe I'm seeing killers as normal people. Especially when I've only known them for a few hours. Trilby seemed to only tolerate them from a standpoint of, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," well we aren't enemies but it's the same idea. Gwen never let up a moment to show she disliked them as much as Rigor, to Marigold so far that is.

Trilby started to head out and signaled for me to follow. Gwen stood at the side of the exit path scanning the Vigils and their camp. Marigold and Pansy had begun to get pillows and blankets from a box in the center of their camp.

I followed behind Trilby and we left. We'd come back to Bleary carrying devious intent for the higher ups. The situation was dire and hopeful, maddening yet mild. Whatever that meant.

Pansy was right, I am pretentious.

* * *

><p>The lights of Bleary shined upon the valley and forest to the north of it. Trilby stopped and opened her scroll, Gwen and I walked past her. "We made it in time with forty minutes left guys," she said. "And keep your mouths shut about what we're trying to do in front of people. I shouldn't have to tell you that but I know how you two work." Trilby closed the scroll and continued walking.<p>

"So how are we gonna plan this?" I asked.

Gwen spoke up. "By-"

"And what I meant was, how are we going to plan our thievery that would risk it leaking with the smallest chance possible?" I said. Gwen puffed.

"We could try writing up things in our rooms or just go into a forest no one should be in that day," said Trilby.

"Writing could work, but it's slow. The forest works too, but we don't need some loner stumbling on us and eventually babbling off to Rigor," said Gwen.

I didn't notice the tiny hill and almost tripped. My body stumbled onto Trilby and I clenched onto her vest, bringing her closer to the ground the more I regained composure.

"Thanks for that," she said as she fixed her clothes.

"It's fine," I replied.

The three of us stood in front of the gate. Trilby contacted one of the staff members to open it with her scroll and we stepped inside. Only the usual students who'd be up walking around this late were in the halls as usual. No one seemed to pay any particular attention to us as we walked down the hall and up the stairs to our dorms. We made it to our rooms and Trilby took out the key then she unlocked the door, Gwen and I stepped in, Trilby shut and locked it behind us.

Trilby then put Gwen in a hold from behind and lifted her off the ground.

"Come on, now of all times?" asked Gwen.

"You and whatever shit you wallowed in back in Vacuo _always_ take priority over everything else," said Trilby carrying her over to the bathroom. She set Gwen down and pushed her inside before locking and shutting the door. Trilby held onto the door for a moment, but there was no physical rebuttal, the shower turned on a few seconds later.

I pulled out the chair from the small table and sat in it. Trilby slid down the door until she was planted onto the floor. I assumed she sighed but it sounded like a whistle instead.

Reminded me of when I started to sleep in their room because Raz refused to take showers due to her belief it would disrupt her aura. Good innocent times, I think all three of us forced her to take a bath. Though I think stripping someone's clothes and scrubbing for them was going to far in retrospect.

I'm surprised she wasn't upset over that. Raz just put on her sleepwear afterwards and went to bed. Over the next following weeks she became an entirely different person. It started off with different nuances in her personality, a haircut, and then an entire clothing change. Shame I never got to learn why she thought bathing would create a new layer of aura that required her to become different, I left the room every time she started talking about it.

The door tried to open and Trilby yelled out.

"I'd say sorry, but you and I know what the word means in relation to me," said Gwen.

Trilby moved from the door and sat near me on the floor. Gwen came out and plopped onto her bed, steam from the bathroom emitted into the room. Trilby was about to say something when there was a knock on the door.

I got up to open it. The two students on the other side made a light flash in my eye. The door closed and locked, on its on, then I went back to sit in the chair.

Trilby punched me in the shin and my leg kicked up into her thigh. More knocks rapped onto the door. "Can you please open the door? I just want to talk with Trilby, Seeds."

Gwen sunk under the covers.

"I'm her middleman- woman, y-you talk to me if you want it passed to her," I said. Trilby punched me in my shin again, harder than last time.

The knob started clicking. "Celene just open the door, why do you have to make simple things so obtuse?"

Trilby sigh-whistled and got up to open the door.

At least Tetra knew my name.


End file.
